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ROYALDYNASTIES

ROYAL WEDDINGS THROUGH THE AGES HENRY VIII AND ANNE BOLEYN
SECRETS OF ROYAL PARENTING THE WINDSORS IN WORLD WAR TWO
THE BLOODY PLANTAGENETS ELIZABETH IS GREAT LOVE

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 ROYALDYNASTIES
WELCOME
Families matter, especially when you are a
king or queen. Throughout history, nothing
has been more important to Britains mon-
archs than creating a stable dynasty, and to
do so has nearly always required a successful
marriage and a brood of potential heirs. Get
it right as the likes of Edward III and Victo-
ria did and the benets are clear. But family
troubles, of the kind that aficted Henry VIII
and Richard III, can lead to disarray for the crown and the country.
In this collectors edition, we have compiled a selection of the
best articles on royal families to have appeared in BBC History
Magazine over the years, accompanied by several new pieces. Over
the pages that follow you will meet some of the most fascinating
royal couples and family groups, and pick up some tips for raising a
royal child and celebrating a royal wedding.
It would be difcult to tackle this subject without exploring the
family of our present Queen and so the nal section delves into
the lives of the Windsors from their wartime activities to the
present day.
I hope you enjoy this collectors edition and please do check out
our monthly magazine where we will continue to investigate the
lives of British monarchs on a regular basis.

Rob Attar, Editor

FROM THE MAKERS OF MAGAZINE

 CONTENTS
ROYAL COUPLES WORLD OF THE WINDSORS
8 How Matilda rewrote the rules 84 George V, the modernising monarch
The diplomatic skills of William the Conquerors The British monarchys survival into the 21st
canny wife helped the Normans consolidate their century owes an enormous debt to George V
hold on England, says Tracy Borman and his wife, Mary, says Denys Blakeway
16 Did Anne Boleyn crave the crown? 92 The Windsors at war
The argument that Anne refused to sleep with
Stephen Bates describes how the royal familys
Henry VIII until he made her his queen simply
response to the Second World War cemented its
doesnt stack up, says George Bernard
place in the affections of the British people
24 Queen Elizabeth Is great love 100 Elizabeth II: a life in pictures
One suitor came closer to Elizabeth I than any
A pictorial story of Elizabeth II, Britains longest
other. Tracy Borman explores the Virgin
reigning monarch, through six eventful decades
Queens relationship with Robert Dudley

32 Charles II: too randy to rule

108 The fall and rise of the royal family
Royal events today are celebrated with
Don Jordan and Michael Walsh reveal how the
enthusiasm in the UK, a turnaround from the
merrie monarchs obsession with sex cost
1990s when the future of the monarchy was
England a fortune and left it vulnerable to attack
questioned, says Sarah Gristwood
40 The AZ of royal weddings
Many were glorious affairs but others were a
complete disaster. Tracy Borman takes a look
at royal marriages through history

ROYAL FAMILIES
50 How to raise a royal

60
A monarchs life can be a real challenge.
Tracy Borman offers tips on preparing royal
children for the demands of being a ruler

The Plantagenets
24 GETTY IMAGES / BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Robert Bartlett traces the rise and fall of a

remarkable dynasty that dominated England
for 331 years

68 Edward III, family man

Mark Ormrod explains why Edward IIIs family
played such a critical role in his dreams of empire

76 George III and his relatives

George was determined that his own family
should be very different from the dysfunc-
tional one in which he grew up, says
Janice Hadlow

4 Royal Dynasties
40 50

76

92 100
Royal Dynasties 5
ROYAL C
REGAL RELATIONSHIPS THAT CHANGED HISTORY

+ How WILLIAM AND MATILDA

rewrote the rules for queenship
+ Did ANNE BOLEYN really insist
on being the queen of HENRY VIII?
+ The scandalous romance of the
Virgin Queen, ELIZABETH I
+ The obsession with women that
made CHARLES II a poor king
+ A match made in heaven? Find
out in the AZ of ROYAL WEDDINGS
6 Royal Dynasties
OUPLES
DYSFUNCTIONAL
COUPLE
Charles II neglected his
wife Catherine, shown
here, and squandered
time and money on a
string of mistresses
instead of attending to
affairs of state
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Royal Dynasties 7
ROYAL COUPLES William and Matilda

MATILDA
The queen who
rewrote the rules
Far from just providing heirs, the relationship between William
the Conqueror and his wife Matilda inspired a new model of
queenship, says TRACY BORMAN, with Matildas diplomatic
skills proving crucial to the consolidation of Williams rule

8 Royal Dynasties
 A NEW KIND OF QUEEN
The statue of Matilda Queen
of England and the benevolent
counterweight to William Is brutality
in the gardens of the Palais du
Luxembourg in Paris

FACING PAGE
A coin from the reign of William I
(10661087). The silver penny
shows a portrait of the king with his
crown and sceptre
GETTUY IMAGES

Royal Dynasties 9
ROYAL COUPLES William and Matilda

WILLIAMS FLAGSHIP
This scene from the Bayeux
Tapestry shows The Mora, the
magnicent agship commissioned
by Matilda for her husbands
invasion of England in 1066

I
n late autumn 1066, a diminutive woman of 35 prize that even she, with her overweening ambition, could
prayed fervently in the Benedictine priory of not possibly have hoped for when she became the wife of
Ntre Dame du Pr, a small chapel that she had the baseborn Duke of Normandy some 15 years earlier.
founded in 1060 on the banks of the river Seine But Hastings, decisive as it was, marked the start, not
near Rouen. Flanked by her ladies, she had spent the end, of Williams campaign to conquer England. It
many hours at her devotions during the would take years of bitter ghting before he was nally
previous few days. able to establish a measure of control over the country.
It was with good cause that she had kept such an anx- William himself realised that he could not rule by the
ious vigil. Her husband William the Bastard, Duke of sword alone: he needed to win the hearts and minds of his
Normandy, had set sail for England more than two weeks resentful new subjects. The surest means of achieving this
before, determined to wrest the throne from Harold was to place his wife at centre stage.
Godwinson. At last, a messenger arrived with Matilda had already won great renown
news that her prayers had been answered. William I pictured in a within Normandy for her piety, political
William and his Norman army had triumphed 13th-century historical shrewdness and, above all, her unimpeach-
chronicle
over the Saxons at Senlac hill, close to the town able lineage. Daughter of the formidable
of Hastings by which the battle would hence- Count Baldwin V of Flanders and niece of the
forth be known. She, Matilda, was King of France, she could trace her descent from
now not just Duchess of Normandy, the great Charlemagne, founding father of the
but Queen of England. French and German empires.
Upon hearing the momentous Even more valuable, from her husbands
tidings, Matilda joyfully pro- perspective, was the fact that she had
claimed that the priory should English royal blood in her veins, for she
henceforth be known as Ntre Dame de was descended from King Alfred the
GETTY IMAGES

Bonnes Nouvelles (Our Lady of Good Great. Little wonder that William
News). She had good reason to rejoice. had been so desperate to marry her
The crown of England was a glittering that, according to one account, he

10 Royal Dynasties
 had ridden at full speed to Bruges and dragged her by the Matilda combined the unrelenting duties of motherhood
hair into the mud, kicking and beating her until she with an increasingly active role in the government of
agreed to become his wife. Normandy. By 1066, she had gained unrivalled inuence
over her husband, and he had no hesitation in appointing

D
espite its rather inauspicious her regent of the duchy when he embarked upon the inva-
beginnings, William and Matildas sion of England.
marriage would prove one of the most Within weeks of his victory at Hastings, William was
successful in history. Together, they sorely missing his wifes presence. He resolved to defer his
established the mighty Norman coronation (which was scheduled for Christmas Day
dynasty that would dominate Europe 1066) so that Matilda might join him, since if God
for more than a hundred years. In an age when the granted him this honour, he wished for his wife to be
primary duty of female consorts was to produce an heir, crowned with him. This was more than mere devotion:
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Matilda exceeded expectations by giving birth to four he knew full well that Matildas presence given her an-
sons and at least ve daughters, all of whom survived well cestral ties with previous English kings would lend the
into adulthood. occasion much-needed legitimacy. But his advisers urged
She may have been the model of wifely obedience on that he could brook no delay and his coronation went
the surface, but this masked a erce ambition for power. ahead before Matilda was able to leave Normandy.

Matilda had gained unrivalled inuence over her

husband, and he had no hesitation in appointing her
regent when he embarked upon the invasion of England

Royal Dynasties 11
ROYAL COUPLES William and Matilda

Matilda was every bit as eager as William to establish Williams authority. Never before had a queens power
herself in England, and had already begun to style herself been so formalised or so equal to that of the king. It was
queen. But it was not until the spring of 1068 that she a sign of things to come.
nally arrived in her new kingdom. The delay had been The new queens presence did not immediately establish
caused not just by the demands of her regency in order in England. Barely were the coronation celebrations
Normandy, but also her role as matriarch of the Norman out of the way than fresh trouble had broken out in the
dynasty. She had fallen pregnant shortly before Williams north of the kingdom. Fearing a rebellion, William has-
departure for England in 1066 (resulting in the birth of a tened to York, the principal city of the north, from where he
daughter, Adela), and by the time she landed on English could prepare his own forces to quell any uprisings.
soil, she was pregnant once more.

M
The new queens arrival in England was noted by the atilda had no intention of staying
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, which referred to her derisively behind in the relatively safe con-
as the Lady Matilda, while her new subjects called her nes of the court in London.
the strange woman. Their suspicion was rooted in the Sensing an opportunity to win
fact that the Normans spoke of her as la Royne, which over their recalcitrant subjects, she
implied that she was a female sovereign in her own right. decided to join her husband in
This was shocking to her new subjects: previous English Yorkshire. This involved a journey of some 200 miles on
queens had been referred to merely as the kings wife. roads that were little more than mud tracks a consider-
Undeterred, Matilda threw herself into the task of able enough feat in itself, let alone for a woman who was
bringing much-needed glamour to her husbands court. by then heavily pregnant. Foremost in her mind was the
A magnicent gathering was held at Winchester to cele- thought that if she could give birth to this new heir in the
brate Easter, and another at Westminster shortly after- most rebellious region of her kingdom, it would achieve
wards, attended by a host of English notables. Even the more towards Anglo-Norman integration than her hus-
anti-Norman chroniclers could not help but be impressed bands strong-arm tactics ever could.
by the opulent spectacle that the couple presented, clad Although she was bound for York, the onset of labour
from head to toe in gold-encrusted robes and eating their forced Matilda to take refuge in Selby, some 14 miles
sumptuous meals from gold and silver platters. south of the northern capital. There, she gave birth to
As soon as these celebrations were out of the way, plans Henry, her ninth and nal child.
began in earnest for the main purpose of Matildas visit: Her plan worked brilliantly. The English came to re-
her coronation. The event was loaded with signicance. gard this prince as the only lawful successor to their
Besides being vital to Williams efforts to reinforce his le- throne from among the Norman dynasty, even though he
gitimacy in the eyes of his new subjects, Matilda had three elder brothers. Matilda encouraged this view by
would be the rst queen of England to be formally making Henry heir to all of her lands in England.
styled Regina.Her coronation was also the rst She also named him after her uncle, the King of
ever staged just for a queen, and Matilda was France, to strengthen his legitimacy.
determined that it should eclipse her husbands Matilda returned to Normandy shortly af-
in splendour. Every detail was planned with me- ter Henrys birth in order to take up the reins
ticulous care. Special laudes (ritual of government once more. But when a fresh
chants) were written for the occasion, uprising broke out in the north
ALAMY

declaring that Matilda shared of England in 1069, William

THE DREAM WIFE

Matildas piety, political
savvy and peerless
lineage (she could trace
her descent from
Emperor Charlemagne)
made her quite a catch

12 Royal Dynasties
 PREPARING FOR BATTLE William orders fortications to be built at Hastings, in the Bayeux Tapestry. While he was campaigning in
England, the duke left Normandy in the hands of his wife Matilda

T
urged her return. While he dealt with the rebels in York he queen was also at the heart of some
and the surrounding area, a strong presence was required of the most important religious debates
to guard against any sympathetic uprisings in the south of of the reign, notably when she and her
the kingdom. Matilda, already gaining favour among the husband ordered that the primacy of
English people thanks to her dignied bearing and gentle York should be subject to the authority
demeanour, formed a welcome contrast to her husbands of the archbishop of Canterbury a
brutality. She was therefore ideally suited for this task. symbolic ruling that effectively brought the north under
During the next 12 years, Matilda constantly itted the control of the court in London.
between England and Normandy, bolstering her hus- Ever sensitive to the mood of the English people,
bands rule in both lands and becoming an ever more though, Matilda subsequently made a series of generous
powerful gurehead for the Norman regime. In England, bequests to the church. In so doing, she won praise from
she was particularly active in the sphere of justice. There the chroniclers, who described her as municent and lib-
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

are numerous references in Domesday Book to her hear- eral of her gifts and indefatigable at alleviating distress
ing English legal cases during Williams absences, which in every shape.
became increasingly frequent during the 1070s. The im- Matildas liberality set her apart from the other mem-
pressive variety of English charters in which Matilda was bers of the Norman ruling elite who had shared in the
involved attests to her versatility in business matters. spoils of the conquest. And whereas her husband and his

Matildas coronation was the rst ever staged just for

a queen. She was determined that it should eclipse
her husbands in magnicence

Royal Dynasties 13
ROYAL COUPLES William and Matilda

Norman entourage relied upon interpreters, she made the A KING RESTRAINED
William issues orders, in the
effort to master the English language a fact that greatly Bayeux Tapestry. Matilda
endeared her to the native population. persuaded her husband to
adopt a less abrasive attitude
As well as winning popularity in her own right, to his subjects following the
Matilda also gradually succeeded in persuading her conquest of England
husband to adopt a more conciliatory stance towards his
conquered subjects. King William, by the advice of
Matilda, treated the English kindly as long as she lived,
observed one contemporary.
When Edward the Confessors widow Edith, who
had long been a gurehead for the Saxon regime,
died in 1075, Matilda urged William to arrange for
her remains to be conveyed from Winchester to
Westminster with great honour so that she might be
interred in the abbey next to her husband. There, a
tomb lavishly decorated with gold and silver was
erected, and William also paid for a suitably
ostentatious funeral.

B
y the time of her last sojourn in England,
in 1081, Matilda had earned wide-
spread admiration among the
people. A consummate diplo-
mat, she had steadily and patiently over- Normans for many years. Principal among them was her
come their initial suspicion with a bril- husband, who fell into a deep depression from which
liantly executed public relations campaign. he never recovered. He had good reason to mourn her
Whereas in the early days of her reign, she had been loss. Matilda had proved the mainstay of Williams rule in
dismissed as Williams gebedde (bedfellow), now she England, and without her the king was continually
was known as the queen of the English, Matilda, wealthy forced to struggle against the storms of troubles that rose
and powerful. Even the most misogynistic of the chroni- up against him.
clers claimed that the common people, the rich, every Matildas career marked the dawning of a new era for
gender and age, the whole clergy, every tongue, every royal consorts. By wielding immense power in both
class admired her just and prudent character. Normandy and England not just on behalf of her hus-
Matildas natural shrewdness and diplomacy had done band, but at times in direct opposition to him Matilda
at least as much if not more to secure England for the confounded the traditional views of women in medieval
Normans than her conqueror husbands military cam- society and provided an inspiring new model of queen-
paigns ever could. ship. No longer conned simply to the domestic sphere,
Matildas death in November 1083 was deeply mourn- her successors were able to play an active part in the
AKG IMAGES

ed on both sides of the Channel. As one contemporary political, judicial and spiritual life of their kingdoms for
observed, she would be wept for by the English and the centuries to come.

Following Matildas death, William was continually

forced to struggle against the storms of
troubles that rose up against him
14 Royal Dynasties
ROYAL COUPLES Charles II

OBJECT OF ROYAL DESIRE

A portrait thought to depict Anne
Boleyn, a woman who, says George
Bernard, stood up for her interests
as she understood them

BACKGROUND A copy of a letter that

Henry wrote to Anne in 1527. The kings
missives in this period suggest that he
was the one holding back from full
sexual relations

FACING PAGE King Henry VIII, painted

by Hans Holbein the Younger in
around 1540

Th o
 DID
ANNE
BOLEYN
CRAVE THE
CROWN?
For years we have been told that Anne refused to
sleep with King Henry VIII until he made her his
queen. Yet, says GEORGE BERNARD, the
GETTY IMAGES

argument that she demanded a crown

on her head simply doesnt stack up

Royal Dynasties 17
ROYAL COUPLES Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII

H
enry VIIIs passion for Anne Its much more likely that Anne asked that she should
Boleyn has never been in doubt. be the kings only mistress. That at least was fully in
In one of his love letters to Anne, Henrys power, as several of his love letters to Anne dis-
Henry lamented her absence, cussed. Those who have suggested that Anne was holding
wishing myself specially an eve- out to be queen may have simply misinterpreted her initial
ning in my sweethearts arms reluctance to yield to Henry. What Anne feared was an
whose pretty dukkys [breasts] all-too-common fate of royal mistresses: to be used and
I trust shortly to kiss, noting that the missive was writ- discarded at the kings pleasure, as had happened to her
ten with the hand of him that was, is and shall be yours. sister, Mary. Henrys letters suggest that Anne was won
But while his desire isnt in question, other aspects of the over by his promise to make her his exclusive mistress.
beginnings of their relationship need to be reassessed. One of the letters conrms Anne did not at rst commit
It is widely held that Anne, with whom Henry fell in herself unreservedly. For a year, Henry lamented, he had
love in the mid-1520s, was prepared to accept his advances been stricken by the dart of love but unsure whether he
only if he married her and made her his queen. By then would nd a place in her heart. And so he offered to make
Henry (born in 1491 and reigning 150947) had been her his sole mistress, banishing all others from his thoughts.
married to Catherine of Aragon for nearly 20 years and she

O
had borne him a child, Mary, though no surviving son. nce Anne had accepted Henrys prom-
Could it be true that Anne suggested to Henry that his ises, they probably enjoyed full sexual
marriage to Catherine, widow of his elder brother Arthur, relations for a while at least, such is
had always been invalid that it was against divine law? suggested by the details of a mission
(Catherine had married Arthur in 1501, but the prince entrusted to one of the kings secretar-
died six months later.) And did Anne steadfastly refuse to ies, William Knight, in the summer
yield to Henry until his marriage to Catherine was an- of 1527. Knight was charged with securing a dispensation
nulled, leaving him free to marry Anne? from the pope permitting the king to remarry if Henrys
For centuries, historians have reiterated this theory. marriage to Catherine of Aragon was rst annulled.
Yet, examined closely, it does not make sense. Imagine It has long been noted that this draft dispensation
Anne as a lady of the court who was wanted by the king as allowed the king to marry someone to whom he was al-
his mistress. In a world in which divorce on the grounds of ready related in the eyes of canon law in particular, a
the irretrievable breakdown of a relationship did not exist, woman with whose sister he had enjoyed sexual relations.
could such a lady realistically hope to persuade Henry to By this time, Henry had already enjoyed an affair with
abandon his wife to marry her? If Anne did make such Mary Boleyn; its quite likely that he was the father of her
demands, would there be the risk that Henry would sim- two eldest children. With the papal dispensation, Henry
ply laugh at her and look elsewhere? was anticipating and attempting to deal with a potential
After all, Catherine was not one of Henrys native sub- obstacle to a marriage to Anne.
jects but the aunt of Charles V, the powerful Holy Roman Less often noticed, and usually dismissed, is the provi-
Emperor, who had inherited a Spanish and Habsburg em- sion in the draft dispensation for Henry to marry a woman
pire extending across Europe from Spain and the with whom he had already had sexual intercourse. Why
Netherlands to Austria and the Kingdom of Naples. Such should Henry have included that provision unless it were
a rejection of Catherine would risk serious diplomatic and true? This suggests that, after convincing Anne she would
dynastic consequences. be his only mistress, he did indeed sleep with her.

Anne feared the all-too-common fate of royal mistresses:

to be used and discarded at the kings
pleasure as had happened to her sister, Mary
18 Royal Dynasties
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

THE SPURNED WIFE

Catherine of Aragon is depicted in a
16th-century portrait. Henry worked to have
their union annulled, claiming that her previous
marriage to his brother invalidated their own

Royal Dynasties 19
ROYAL COUPLES Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII

But only for a brief period. It was probably at this point Henrys subscription, written with the hand of him
that Henry came to the conclusion that his marriage to which desireth as much to be yours as you do to have
Catherine of Aragon had never been valid in the eyes of him, hints that it was Anne who needed reassurance of
God, on the grounds that the Bible suggested that a man Henrys desire, and Henry who was holding back.
should not marry his brothers former wife. If that mar- On another occasion Henry wrote to Anne: What joy
riage were annulled, Henry realised, he would be free to it is to me to understand of your conformableness to rea-
marry Anne as his rst wife. Any child born would be of son and of the suppressing of your inutile and vain
unquestioned legitimacy. But in order to make his case for thoughts and fantasies with the bridle of reason.
an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, Henry need- Continue, Henry urged, for thereby shall come, both to
ed to hold the moral high ground. you and to me the greatest quietness that may be in this
Throughout the proceedings leading to his divorce, world. Here Henry was urging patience, conformable-
Henry claimed not that his marriage to Catherine had ness to reason, until the church found in his favour.
broken down but that it had always been against divine In a letter most likely written soon after Anne agreed to
law. If Henry had publicly admitted that he had fallen in become his mistress, Henry assured her that henceforth
love with Anne Boleyn, it would have cast doubt on the my heart will be devoted to you only, greatly wanting that
sincerity of his concern not to break divine law. my body also could be. Daily he begged God to intervene
In an age without reliable methods of contraception, and help him achieve his goal, hoping that at length his
there was also an obvious risk of pregnancy and nothing prayer would be heard. Yet, in doing so, Henry was not
would be more damaging to the kings moral credibility. berating Anne for holding back, for refusing to sleep with
Jean du Bellay, the French ambassador, vividly outlined him. Instead it was Henry who refrained, and what he re-
the problem in June 1529: I very much fear that for some gretted were the complexities and the delays imposed by
time past this king has come very near Mme Anne, add- the laws and procedures of the church.
ing: If the belly grows, all will be spoilt. The love letters also reveal that theirs became an inti-
Whats more, Henry was determined that any child he mate relationship. As we have seen, Henry longed to hold
might have with Anne should be indisputably legitimate, Anne in his arms and kiss her breasts. Henrys suit of ar-
not the controversial offspring of a relationship not yet mour shows he was a big man, and we know he was force-
validated. Anne never did become pregnant during the ful in emotion: in 1535, he came close to killing his court
long years in which Henry and his advisors worked to- fool in a rage. If he had wanted to go further with Anne, it
wards the end of his marriage to Catherine. That does not is implausible to think that she could have prevented him.
prove that it was Anne who was holding Henry back, but From where, then, did the story arise that Anne was
is consistent with the suggestion that it was Henry, not refusing Henrys advances until she was made queen?
Anne, who refrained from full sexual relations. Perhaps the source was the scholar and cleric Reginald
Pole who had gone abroad to study rather than become

H
enrys love letters support this theory. implicated in the kings divorce. In 1536, Pole attacked
In one he informed darling Anne Henry ercely, calling on the king to repent and return to
that the letter-bearer was being sent the fold of the church. He berated Henry for the terrible
with as many things to compass our things the king had done for the love of Anne Boleyn; she
matter and to bring it to pass as our was presented as a femme fatale who convinced Henry
wits could imagine or devise. Once that, as long as he maintained Catherine as his wife, he
brought to pass, you and I shall have our desired end, was living in mortal sin. In doing so Pole was offering
which should be more to my hearts ease and more quiet- Henry a way out an excuse that he could use if he
ness to my mind than any other thing in this world. repented and ended the schism with the Catholic church.

Henry was determined that any child he might have with

Anne should be indisputably legitimate
20 Royal Dynasties
 TIMELINE

The love story of Anne and Henry

Henry is convinced c152526 Henry falls in love with Anne.
that his marriage to He pursues her for a year before she
Catherine of Aragon agrees to become his mistress, though
contravenes divine their sexual relationship continues for
law and is invalid. only a limited time, perhaps a year.
With lord chancellor
and cardinal Thomas Henry, who previously had an
Wolsey (left) and affair with Mary, Annes sister
many churchmen May 1527 (right), requests a papal
and lawyers, Henry dispensation to permit him
tries to persuade to marry a woman with
the pope to grant whose sister he had had
an annulment. sexual relations, and with
whom he had already had
sexual relations.
Autumn/winter 1527
Henry sees Catherine of Aragon for the
last time. She is forced to leave court,
dying at Kimbolton Castle (in Cam-
bridgeshire) in 1536.
11 July 1531

Henry marries Anne

in a secret ceremony.
Winter 1532/33
Thomas Cranmer
(left), archbishop
of Canterbury,
pronounces
Henrys marriage May 1533
to Catherine of
Aragon invalid.
1 June 1533
Anne gives birth to a
daughter, Elizabeth.
This was a disappointment
to the king. September 1533

Anne is crowned in Westminster

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY / GETTY IMAGES / AKG IMAGES

Abbey. Her tryumphaunt corona-

tion is shown in this 1533 pamphlet.

Anne is charged with and

convicted of treason. She is alleged
to have committed adultery with ve
men, including an incestuous liaison
with her brother, George.
May 1536
Anne Boleyn is beheaded with a single
sword strike at the Tower of London,
shown here in an 18th-century illustration. 19 May 1536

Royal Dynasties 21
ROYAL COUPLES Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII

A KING IN LOVE
A portrait of Henry VIII
from c152530. Once
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Anne accepted the kings

promise to make her his sole
mistress, it is implausible to
think that she could have
prevented him enjoying
full sexual relations

22 Royal Dynasties
 It was a characteristic of Henrys rule that
he placed responsibility for unpopular poli-
cies on others. Here, Pole was offering him
scope to do that again. But even though
Anne was by then dead (charged with trea-
son, she was executed in 1536), Henry did
not take the opportunity offered by Poles
comments and we should not treat Poles
remarks as the truth. Nothing in surviving
sources from the late 1520s points to Anne
being involved in making the case for the an-
nulment of Henrys marriage to Catherine.
On the contrary, many of the sources
suggest the opposite was true. In one of his
letters, Henry told Anne he had spent four
hours that day working on the book in
support of his case for an annulment,
collecting and elaborating on biblical
examples that justied his stand, but he
made no attempt to involve Anne in this.
Henry sent Francis Bryan, a trusted
courtier, to Italy to report on how
things stood in the papal courts. Bryan
took care to write to the king only,
giving Henry the opportunity to tell
Anne just how much, or how little, he
pleased. She was not directing Henrys
marital diplomacy.
The suggestion that Anne Boleyn
did not refuse to sleep with Henry
until they could be married may
diminish her in some peoples eyes
unfairly, in my view. If Anne insisted
that Henry enjoy her as his sole mis-
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

tress before she agreed to any

relationship, it showed that she was no
doormat rather, a woman who stood up for her interests INNER SANCTUM
as she understood them. Demanding to be Henrys Henrys writing box (c152527) bears the heraldic
badges of both the king and his rst wife, Catherine
queen, though, would have been a step too far and there of Aragon. Henry may have kept the pens he used to
is nothing to show that she did. write his love letters to Anne in this box

If Anne insisted that Henry enjoy her as his sole

mistress before she agreed to any relationship, it showed
that she was no doormat
Royal Dynasties 23
ROYAL COUPLES Elizabeth I and Dudley

QUEEN
ELIZABETH IS
GREAT
LOVE
The Virgin Queen never
married, but one suitor came
closer to her than any other.
TRACY BORMAN explores
the complex and sometimes
scandalous relationship
between Elizabeth I
and Robert Dudley

GETTY IMAGES

24 Royal Dynasties
 THE VIRGIN QUEEN
Dismayed by the fate of
her mother Anne Boleyn,
Elizabeth I (15331603)
vowed never to marry, but
she played various suitors
off each other in order to
suit her political ends

FACING PAGE
Courtier Robert Dudley
had known Elizabeth since
they were children and is
thought to have been her
one great love although
they never married
GETTY IMAGES

Royal Dynasties 25
ROYAL COUPLES Elizabeth I and Dudley

E
lizabeth I is remembered in history as at the age of 25. She immediately appointed Dudley to be
the Virgin Queen. She was the daugh- her Master of Horse, a prestigious position that involved
ter of Henry VIII by his second wife regular attendance upon his royal mistress. But it was no
Anne Boleyn and in stark contrast to longer easy for the couple to meet in private. As queen,
her much-married father, she famously Elizabeths every move was scrutinised not just by her
declared: I will have but one mistress people, but by the whole of Europe. A thousand eyes see
here, and no master. During the all I do, she once complained.
course of her long reign, she was besieged by many suitors Nevertheless, Elizabeth made it clear that she had no
but gave each one nothing more than fair words but no intention of giving up her favourite. If anything, she found
promises. Yet it is generally accepted that there was one ways to spend even more time with him. A year after her
man who, more than any other, tempted Elizabeth to accession, she had Dudleys bedchamber moved next to
relinquish her single state. her private rooms in order to facilitate their clandestine
Robert Dudley (1532/3388), was the fth son of meetings. Before long, their relationship was causing a
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. The duke scandal not just in England, but in courts across Europe.
had wrested power during the minority of Edward VI The obvious intimacy between them provoked endless
(who became king aged nine on Henry VIIIs death), but speculation about just how close their relationship was.
was executed for putting his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Elizabeths chief rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, was in no
Grey, on the throne after the young kings death in 1553. doubt that Elizabeth and Dudley were lovers, and later
His son Robert led troops in support of the coup, but was told the noblewoman Bess of Hardwick that he had visit-
swiftly defeated by Queen Mary I and was thrown into ed the queens bed numerous times. It is unlikely that
the Tower of London. Elizabeth, who had seen so many powerful examples of
Robert Dudleys sojourn in the Tower coincided with the perils of sex and childbirth, would have risked the
that of the new queens half-sister, Elizabeth (who Mary throne she had fought so hard for by sleeping with her
suspected of plotting against her). They had been friends favourite. But their friendship probably charted a careful
since childhood, Dudley having been among her brother course between platonic and sexual.
Edwards companions. Close in age, Elizabeth and Dudley

T
had shared the same tutor, Roger Ascham, who had been he rumours ared up again in 1587,
greatly impressed by his precocious young pupils. when a young man going by the name
It was in Dudley that the eight-year-old Elizabeth had of Arthur Dudley arrived at Philip IIs
conded upon the execution of her third stepmother, court in Madrid, Spain, claiming to be
Catherine Howard, in 1541, vowing: I will never marry. the illegitimate child of the English
He would always remember the conversation, and it may queen and her favourite, Robert
have been the reason he decided to marry Amy Robsart Dudley. His age placed his conception at 1561, which co-
nine years later. During the years that followed, Robert incided with Elizabeth being bedridden with a mysteri-
kept his wife away from court mindful, perhaps, that it ous illness that caused her body to swell. The account
might damage his relationship with Elizabeth. therefore had an air of credibility, made more so by the
The years of uncertainty during Mary Tudors fact that Arthur was able to name a servant who
reign (155358), when Elizabeth lived in con- had allegedly spirited him away from the roy-
stant fear for her life, brought her ever closer to al palace of Hampton Court (near London)
GETTY IMAGES

Dudley. He remained loyal to her throughout, as soon as he was born and raised him as his
even when it risked his own safety. They spent own, only confessing the truth on his
many hours together and had a great deal deathbed in 1583. There is no rm evi-
in common, sharing a love of hunting,
dancing and lively conversation. This
sparked endless gossip among the prin-
RIVAL CLAIM
cesss household, particularly given Mary, Queen of Scots, had her own
that Dudley was a married man. claims to the throne of England and
was quick to try and undermine
His loyalty was rewarded when Elizabeth I by criticising her
Elizabeth became queen in 1558, relationship with Dudley

26 Royal Dynasties
 THE STRIKING PRINCESS As a young girl Princess Elizabeth, SUSPICIOUS DEATH Dudley came under suspicion when his wife
shown aged about 13, shared a tutor with Robert Dudley. The two was found dead at the bottom of their stairs. In the ensuing scandal,
were close for most of their lives, sometimes infamously so the queen had to distance herself from him in public at least

dence to corroborate the story, but it suited King Philips make way for her. Elizabeth was also in the frame: many
interests to discredit the English queen. believed that her passion for Dudley had driven her to
Ironically, the death of Dudleys wife in 1560, at her have his wife murdered so that she could have him at last.
residence Cumnor Place, removed any hope that Elizabeth Yet it is extremely unlikely that Dudley or Elizabeth
may have privately cherished of one day marrying him. had any hand in Amys death. They would hardly have
The circumstances were suspicious. Amy insisted that all taken such a risk, especially as they would have known
her servants attend a local fair. When they returned, they that it would prove counterproductive to any plans they
found her at the bottom of a short ight of stairs, her neck may have had to marry. The scandal reverberated not just
broken. Whether it was an accident, suicide or murder has around the kingdom but across the courts of Europe, so
ALAMY / BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

never been resolved beyond doubt. that Elizabeth was obliged to distance herself from
The nger of suspicion pointed at Dudley, whom his Dudley in order to avoid being implicated any further.
enemies claimed would not have inched from having his But in private, the queen refused to give up her favorite.
own wife put to death so that he could realise his ambi- Now that the scrutiny of the court was even more intense,
tions of marrying the queen. Mary, Queen of Scots she was obliged to go to even greater lengths to conceal
quipped that the queen of England was about to marry their meetings. In November 1561, for example, she dis-
her horsekeeper who had killed his wife in order to guised herself as the maid of Katherine Howard (later

Many believed that Elizabeths passion for Dudley had

driven her to have his wife murdered

Royal Dynasties 27
ROYAL COUPLES Elizabeth I and Dudley

DUDLEYS CASTLE
Robert spent a fortune
transforming Kenilworth
Castle to make sure it
was t to receive the
queen in 1575. Today
it is a ruin, but the
Elizabethan gardens
have been restored

Countess of Nottingham) in order to enjoy the secret any of them. The Venetian ambassador shrewdly
pleasure of watching Dudley shoot near Windsor Castle. observed: She has many suitors for her hand, and by
Another attempt at discretion was less successful. When protracting any decision keeps them all in hope.
her close friend and attendant Lady Fiennes de Clinton

M
helped Elizabeth escape court in disguise to meet Dudley eanwhile, now that the scandal of
at his house for dinner, Philip II of Spains envoy heard of his wifes death had faded, Robert
it and immediately reported it to his master. Dudley stepped up his campaign
In the letters that Queen Elizabeth and Dudley to make Queen Elizabeth his wife.
exchanged, they used the symbol as code for the nick- He besieged her with protestations
name of Eyes that she had given him. Elizabeth kept her of his undying affection, all of
favorites letters, along with his portrait, in a locked desk which his royal mistress received with obvious pleasure
next to her bed. On a visit to court in 1564, the Scottish but with no rm promises.
ambassador Sir James Melville spied the portrait as By 1575, Dudley was growing desperate and decided to
Elizabeth was searching for one of his own royal mistress. make one last, spectacular attempt to persuade Elizabeth
When he asked if he could borrow it to show the Scottish to marry him. Pulling out all the stops, he invited her to
queen, Elizabeth immediately refused, alleging that she his Warwickshire estate, Kenilworth Castle, and staged
had but that one picture of his. Spying Robert Dudley in several days of extraordinarily lavish entertainments at a
a corner of the bedchamber, Melville slyly observed that huge cost. The queen loved every minute of her visit there,
she should not cling so to the portrait, since she had the but would not be dazzled into acquiescence. Genuine
original. though her affection for Robert was, she knew that
ISTOCKPHOTO

As her reign progressed and the pressure to marry grew marrying him would court disaster in her kingdom,
ever more intense, Elizabeth pretended to consider nu- sparking such intense opposition from Dudleys rivals
merous potential suitors. But she would never commit to that it might even spill out into civil war.

Her close friend helped Elizabeth escape court in

disguise to meet Dudley at his house
28 Royal Dynasties
 Elizabeths other men
As well as Dudley, the Virgin Queen had several other contenders for her heart

Eric XIV of Sweden (153377) Philip II of Spain (152798)

Realising that marrying a home-grown candidate was Even while he had been married to her sister Mary I,
fraught with difculty, Elizabeths ministers focused Philip II of Spain had made overtures towards Elizabeth,
upon suitors from overseas for most of her reign. One beguiled by her youthful charms. When Mary died,
of the earliest was King Eric XIV of Sweden, who had Philip who had been styled King of England for his
started to make overtures towards Elizabeth before wifes lifetime only was reluctant to give up his
she was queen. He continued to pursue her for English kingdom and so sent a proposal of marriage
several years and even made to Elizabeth. He urged the new
plans to visit her. Horried, queen to consider the advan-
she wrote him a polite but tages of having the protection
rm letter, telling him to of Spain. Elizabeth employed
stay away and assuring what would become her
him: We have never yet customary tactic of delaying,
conceived a feeling of but eventually told Philip that
that kind of affection she could not marry her sisters
towards anyone. widower, and that his Catholi-
cism would not be
acceptable to
her people.
Thenceforth,
they were
enemies.

Franois, Duke of Alenon Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

and Anjou (155584) (15651601)
Elizabeths last serious suitor was Franois, the Duke Robert was the son of Elizabeths rival Lettice Knollys
of Alenon and Anjou, and the youngest son of King with her rst husband Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of
Henry II of France. He had rst been proposed as a Essex. He was 30 years younger than Elizabeth but
husband in 1578, when he was 23 and Elizabeth 45. gave every appearance of being passionately in love
Despite the considerable age gap, the pair became with her. She was beguiled by his darkly handsome
very close, aided by looks and swaggering self-condence, which made him
the fact that the take greater liberties with the queen than anyone else
duke was the only dared. Painfully aware that age
one of the queens had ravished her looks, she
many suitors to was ercely possessive of his
court her in person. attentions. But Essex had
Calling him her frog, already proved false. In
Queen Elizabeth 1590, he had incurred her
showered the young wrath by secretly marry-
duke with affection, and ing Frances Walsingham,
he gave every appear- daughter of the secretary
ance of returning her of state. He later led a
love. But it all came to rebellion against
nothing, and Franois Elizabeths regime
ALAMY / GETTY IMAGES

eventually returned to and was execut-

France in 1581. ed in 1601.

Royal Dynasties 29
ROYAL COUPLES Elizabeth I and Dudley

ELIZABETHS
SWEET ROBIN
Dudley, seen in later life,
had a close relationship
with Queen Elizabeth I
for almost 50 years and
she was devastated by
his death in 1588

ALAMY

30 Royal Dynasties
 For all his desperation to marry the was to her old favourite that she
queen, Dudley had been secretly turned for comfort. Dudley was
courting one of her ladies-in-wait- also by Elizabeths side through
ing, Lettice Knollys. Described the Armada crisis of 1588 (the
as being one of the best-looking Spanish navys failed attempt to
women of the court, she was of invade England, thwarted by the
royal blood, being the great-niece of English eet). By now he was
Elizabeths mother, Anne Boleyn. gravely ill but did not hesitate to
This no doubt added to her attraction accept the post of Lieutenant and
for Dudley, who had enjoyed a irta- Captain-General of the Queens
tion with Lettice for the previous 10 Armies and Companies.
years. Now that his last-ditch attempt to He walked beside her horse as his
persuade Elizabeth to marry him had failed, royal mistress delivered her famous speech
The queen refused to marry
he took Lettice as his mistress. Dudley but was incandescent at Tilbury on 8 August 1588, while inspect-
For a time, Elizabeth was blissfully un- with rage when he secretly ing the troops that had been assembled to
married Lettice Knollys, above
aware that her favourite was betraying her. defend the Thames Estuary against any
But three years into the affair, Lettice became pregnant. incursion up-river towards London: I know I have the
She was not a woman to be set aside and insisted that body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart
Dudley marry her. Fearing the inevitable backlash from and stomach of a king and of a king of England too.
his royal mistress, he agreed only to a secret ceremony, He stayed with the queen in the immediate aftermath
which took place in 1578. The bride was said to have worn of the Armada, wishing to be certain that the danger had
a loose gown a coded reference to her pregnant state. It passed. One of the last recorded sightings of the pair to-
was not long before the secret leaked out at court. When gether was at a palace window, watching a celebratory pa-
Elizabeth learned that her cousin had stolen the only man rade staged by his stepson, the Earl of Essex. By now in
she had truly loved, she ew into a jealous rage, boxing poor health, Dudley took his leave of Elizabeth. He, at
Lettices ears and screaming that as but one sun light- least, must have known that it would be for the last time.
ened the earth, she would have but one queen in England. A few days later, he wrote to Elizabeth from Rycote in
She then banished this outing wench from her pres- Oxfordshire, ending the letter: I humbly kiss your foot
ence, vowing never to set eyes on her again. Although she by Your Majestys most faithful and obedient servant.
eventually forgave Dudley, their relationship had lost the These were probably the last words ever written by Robert
intimacy that had dened it for so many years. Dudley. Five days later, on 4 September 1588, he breathed
his last. Elizabeth was inconsolable at the loss of sweet

B
ut towards the end of Dudleys life, they Robin, the only man whom she had ever truly loved.
grew close once more. In 1586, he went to Their relationship had survived almost 50 years of trials
command her forces in the Netherlands. and tribulations, and Elizabeth was lost without him.
Missing him, she wrote an affectionate In the days immediately after his death, she kept to her
letter, which she signed: As you know, room, unable to face her court or council. The brief note
BRIDGMAN ART LIBRARY

ever the same. ER. Ever the same or that he had sent her from Rycote now became her most
semper eadem was her motto, but she and Dudley knew treasured possession. She inscribed it His last letter, and
how much more it signied in their relationship. kept it in a locked casket by her bed for the rest of her life.
The following year, the execution of Mary, Queen of For years afterwards if anyone mentioned Robert
Scots at Elizabeths orders threw her into turmoil and it Dudleys name her eyes lled with tears.

Their relationship had survived almost 50 years of trials and

tribulations and Elizabeth was lost without him
Royal Dynasties 31
ROYAL COUPLES Charles II and his mistresses

Charles II
TOO RANDY
TO RULE
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

DON JORDAN and MICHAEL WALSH reveal how

the merrie monarchs obsession with sex cost England
a fortune and left it vulnerable to attack

32 Royal Dynasties
 THE OVERSEXED KING
Charles II, shown in around 1675,
was a notorious philanderer whose
dedicated pursuit of pleasure led
the nation into crisis

FACING PAGE LEFT TO RIGHT

Royal sexual partners,
ofcial and unofcial: Barbara,
Countess of Castlemaine; Queen
Catherine, shown with Charles;
Louise de Kroualle
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Royal Dynasties 33
ROYAL COUPLES Charles II and his mistresses

I
n late summer 1662, King Charles II stood on exiled royalists came home, including Barbara, the
the roof of his banqueting house looking over daughter of an impoverished peer and wife of the courtier
his palace below. Beside him stood his famously and politician, Roger Palmer. She may well have already
voluptuous mistress, Barbara Castlemaine. become Charless lover. Two years later, Charles married
King and concubine watched a dazzling proces- Catherine of Braganza, daughter of the king of Portugal.
sion arrive at the palace. It carried Charless new Disastrously, the marriage did not produce a royal heir,
queen, Catherine of Braganza, who was from a while Barbara gave Charles several children. A boy,
noble house of Portugal. She was moving from Hampton Charles, was born in Hampton Court in June 1662 while
Court, a royal palace on the river Thames a few miles west the newly wed king and Catherine were honeymooning
of the capital, where she and the king had recently honey- there. The affront to the queen was the rst of many
mooned, to take up residence at Whitehall Palace, London. insults Catherine would endure.
This scene the king and his mistress watching the At Barbaras behest, Charles insisted Catherine appoint
queen arrive, in effect, alone is the quintessence of her as a lady-of-the-bedchamber. The queen resisted, sup-
Charles IIs hedonistic reign. He was besotted by sensuality. ported by the lord chancellor, Clarendon. Usually placid,
During his 25 years on the throne, he spent more time on Charles showed steely determination where sex was
the pursuit and enjoyment of women than in council involved. He warned Clarendon, who-soever I nd use
meetings. Nicknamed the merrie monarch, he aunted any endeavour to hinder this resolution of mine I will
his mistresses in front of the nation and Queen Catherine. be his enemy to the last moment of my life.
His court shared his obsession with sex. Leading lights

B
such as the Duke of Buckingham and Earl of Danby were arbaras new position meant she was
amoral, carefree and licentious. Venereal disease was so ensconced in Whitehall, on tap for the
common among them that a specialist pox doctor was kings delight. Her huge palace
on call in the court. None among his intimates could have apartments were ostentatious, while her
been surprised in 1674 to hear that Charles was infected spending almost certainly outstripped
and that his French mistress of the time, Louise de that of anyone else in the kingdom.
Kroualle, had berated him before the French ambassador Charles deluged her with gifts and allowed her to siphon
for laying her low with the infection. off funds that would otherwise have gone to the public
Charles has been cast as a dextrous politician. But inter- purse. Custom duties brought her 10,000 per annum,
ests were neglected and decisions postponed in order to beer tax another 10,000, post ofce revenue 5,000, and
meet the demands of his social life. He once broke off talks so on. One night she lost 25,000 playing cards: Charles
on war and peace with a French delegation so as not to picked up the debt.
keep Barbara waiting for dinner. To reduce the tedium of Barbara wanted Charles to make her position as a
government business, which he hated, he took to conduct- courtesan something grander, what the French called a
ing state affairs from Barbaras apartments in Whitehall matresse-en-titre, or ofcial mistress. To
Palace. Courtier John Evelyn commented that satisfy her hunger for status, Charles BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Charles would have made a good ruler, if he piled aristocratic honours upon her,
had been less addicted to women. labelling her countess and then
Charles brought the addiction home in duchess. Barbara meddled in politics
1660 after parliament issued the invitation almost from the outset, gaining her
for him to ascend a throne empty since his rst political scalp in 1662 when she
fathers execution 11 years beforehand. In
the intervening period Charles had
remained in exile, living on the char-
ity of the royal houses of Europe.
THE ROYAL MISTRESS
He lled his days partying, Barbara, Countess of
riding horses, sailing and seduc- Castlemaine, with her son
ing women. Charles whom King
Charles II acknowledged
At the restoration of the as his own, by court
monarchy, a large retinue of painter Sir Peter Lely

34 Royal Dynasties
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

HUMILIATION FOR THE QUEEN

Charles II shown at a court ball in
the 1660s. He and his inner circle at
court were obsessed with partying
and he aunted his mistresses in
front of his wife, Catherine

During his 25 years on the throne, he spent

more time on the pursuit and enjoyment
of women than in council meetings

Royal Dynasties 35
ROYAL COUPLES Charles II and his mistresses

MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE
Charles II was a serial philanderer and
the union between him and his wife
Catherine, seen together in this double
portrait from c1665, was far from happy

helped arrange the dismissal of the venerable secretary of his mothers protection. Lucy reportedly died in poverty
state Sir Edward Nicholas. Later, she played the major in Paris in 1658, not yet aged 30, possibly having had to
part in the downfall of the even more venerable lord take up prostitution.
chancellor, Clarendon, who had made plain his view of Prostitution was not a profession with which Charles
her by refusing to utter her name and banning his wife had a problem. He dallied with all sorts of women, from
from speaking to her. all social classes. Many were actresses procured by his
The queen, with the fortitude of a religious upbringing servant William Chifnch, known as the kings pimp-
and the breeding of a royal princess, rarely gave vent to her master. Some came straight from brothels.
feelings. As Charles paraded his mistresses, Catherine When the queen fell gravely ill, probably following a
cried in private. Her agony was increased by the arrival miscarriage, the talk in the court was that if Catherine
from France of Charless illegitimate rst-born son, James died, Charles would marry Frances Stuart, a teenage
Scott, upon whom he doted. He made the boy Duke of beauty and one of the queens ladies-of-the-bedchamber.
Monmouth, a title worthy of a legitimate heir, which The queen recovered, only to miscarry at least twice more.
prompted Catherine to threaten to leave her husband and Courtiers begged Charles to divorce her and marry
never see his face no more. It was an empty threat; she Frances but he refused.
had nowhere to go.

W
Though Charles had experienced sex when as young as hile these domestic matters
15, Monmouths mother, the Welsh beauty Lucy Walter, transxed the court, the country
was his rst meaningful relationship. John Evelyn de- suffered humiliation in a naval
scribed her as being brown, beautiful, bold. Lucy and battle. England was engaged in
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Charles became lovers in 1648 when they were both just war with the Dutch, which had
18 and living in exile. Lucy was soon pregnant and begun in the spring of 1665 in a
Charles accepted the child as his. His friends abused Lucy struggle for supremacy of the sea and trade. In early 1667,
as a whore and, under pressure, Charles eventually the British crown ran out of money, and could not afford
abandoned her and took away her son to be raised under to ret the eet and pay ships crews. When the crown

36 Royal Dynasties
 Charles IIs other women
It was hard to refuse such a powerful gure, but one woman famously got away

Nell Gwyn Frances Stuart Hortense Mancini

THE NATIONS SWEETHEART THE GREATEST BEAUTY THE WILD BISEXUAL
She is one of the most famous It was difcult for young women The wildest of Charless mistresses
gures in popular British history, of the royal court to resist the was Hortense Mancini (164699),
but parts of Nell Gwyns life are kings advances. But in 1663, a niece of Cardinal Mazarin, rst
clouded in mystery. Dates for her 15-year-old not only bowled minister of Louis XIV of France.
birth range from 1642 to 1651 and Charles over, but managed to She was married at the age of
her birthplace is uncertain. Even keep him at bay for years. This 14 to the much older Duke de
her many famous witticisms were was Frances Stuart (16471702), Meilleraye. He was a religious
usually reported second-hand and described by the famous naval fanatic who believed milkmaids
many may be apocryphal. What is administrator and diarist Samuel on his estate could be turned into
certain is that she spent some Pepys as the greatest beauty I sex maniacs by touching cows
early years in Londons Covent ever saw, I think, in my life. udders. He therefore had the
Garden, which was then a slum, Frances had arrived at the court girls teeth knocked out to make
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY / GETTY IMAGES

by her own admission serving as a lady-of-the-bedchamber to them unattractive. Hortense ran

beer in a brothel. Her acting the queen, and Charles immedi- away several times, eventually
talent was real, making her a ately saw her as a ower to be travelling to London, where she
huge star, while her shining plucked. In 1667, fearing that became Charless mistress. She
personality brought her to the sooner or later she would have to was bisexual, and one of her
bed of a king she bore him two succumb to the king, Frances many lovers was Anne, Countess
sons during their 16-year love eloped with the Duke of Richmond of Sussex, herself the daughter of
affair and into the heart of a and Lennox. She was, literally, the Charles II and Barbara, Countess
nation. She died in 1687. one that got away. of Castlemaine, one of his lovers.

King Charles II dallied with all sorts of

women, from all social classes

Royal Dynasties 37
ROYAL COUPLES Charles II and his mistresses

WHILE CHARLES PLAYED

In 1667, with the English naval eet laid up
in the Medway river due to a lack of funds
for a ret, the Dutch made a devastating
raid (illustrated here), even seizing the
eets agship Royal Charles

asked parliament for the necessary 1.5m it replied that with the Countess of Castlemaine bewailing, above all
rst it wanted to know how the 5m it had previously others, that she should be the rst torn to pieces. As the
allocated had been spent. No answer was received. Dutch sailed from the Medway into the mouth of the
According to Samuel Pepys at the navy board, 2.3m was Thames, London panicked. Many people ed, thinking
unaccounted for. It was rumoured that the king had the capital was sure to fall. But the Dutch held off, and the
lavished much of this on his mistresses. capital was saved. Charles could do nothing but seek
With no money forthcoming, Charles made the mo- peace on the best terms possible.
mentous decision to lay up the bulk of the eet in the In the aftermath of all this, the king could not, of
Medway. When the Dutch discovered this, they decided course, be blamed. The scurrilous and anonymous pam-
to nish the war in a decisive knockout blow. In June, the phlets that circulated in London blamed Barbara and
Dutch eet was spotted massing off the Thames Estuary. even the Earl of Clarendon, who had been against the war
Charles didnt act. Two days later the Dutch sailed into from the beginning. A commission was set up to look into
the river Medway and burnt or captured the pride of the the royal nances, but it never met.
British eet, even towing away the agship, the Royal This Medway Raid was an illustration of Charles II be-
GETTY IMAGES

Charles. While this was taking place, the king was play- coming detached from the realities of policy while spend-
ing parlour games with Barbara and other favourites. ing too much time on personal gratication. There was a
Mobs gathered in London, denouncing the monarchy, pattern to his behaviour; he loved to escape into the femi-

The bishop of Salisbury said: The ruin of his reign was

occasioned chiey by his delivering himself
up to a mad range of pleasure
38 Royal Dynasties
 nine world of frivolity and lack of responsibility (in the suite in Whitehall, showered jewels on her and allowed
17th century, women of high social standing were expect- her to raid the public purses on an even greater scale than
ed to exemplify the rst and could never have the latter). Barbara managed. Where Barbara had employed a fear-
Stories abounded of how he hated serious conversation. some temper to get her way, the softly spoken Louise em-
He enjoyed being with women, making love to them, so- ployed tears, embraces and sympathy. Hers was the win-
cialising with them, being pampered by them. Yet he re- ning formula with the increasingly jaded king and in 1676
mained aloof, never falling in love, his interest remaining, Barbara quit England for Paris, not returning permanent-
as pointed out by the contemporary politician and writer ly until 1682.
George Savile, carnal enjoyment. Charless emotional Widely decried as a French spy, Louise certainly
need for womens company never developed into the ma- appears to have served French interests well. Under her
ture bonds that most men and women enjoy. He wanted inuence, Charles continually resisted popular pressure to
pleasure, but he also needed female solace and attery. contain French expansionism and stood by while France
seized more and more of the Netherlands. The most abject

B
arbaras demise as effective matresse-en- moment came when Charles offered not to call parliament
titre came in the wake of the 1670 secret again without Louis XIVs agreement. Louises French
treaty of Dover. This promised Charles biographer Henri Forneron wrote of her: During 15 years
huge French pay-offs to back Louis XIVs she was holding Great Britain in her delicate little hand,
war of conquest in the Netherlands, while and manipulated its king and statesmen as dexterously as
Charles agreed to turn Catholic. As this she might have done her fan.
monumental deal was being concluded in Dover, It is somehow tting that in 1685, on the evening before
Charless eye lit on a baby-faced lady-in-waiting in the the onset of his short and fatal illness, Charles enjoyed an
French delegation. Typically, he deliberately prolonged evening spent with three of his mistresses: Louise, Barbara
negotiations on this hugely important pact just to see and a more recent addition, Hortense Mancini.
more of her. His contemporaries were not slow to pass verdict upon
The young woman was Louise de Kroualle, daughter him after his death. The bishop of Salisbury, who knew
of an impecunious aristocrat of Brittany, France. With him well, said: The ruin of his reign was occasioned
Louis XIVs connivance, Barbaras enemies, led by the chiey by his delivering himself up to a mad range of
Earl of Arlington, plotted the replacement of Barbara by pleasure. Sexual pleasure was indeed the problem. He was
the young woman from Brittany. Arlington tutored her in introduced to it before his 15th birthday, became addicted
how to keep the king happy. It was impressed upon her to it in exile, using it as a defence against a world in which
not to talk business to His Majesty. his father Charles I had been executed and he himself had
It took a year before Louise was secure enough of been robbed of his golden years.
his affections to allow him to bed her. A mea- When Charles suddenly gained the throne, for
sure of how important the role of matresse- which he had been unprepared, he contin-
en-titre had become was that the whole court ued in the same way, ruling, as the
was invited to a celebratory party, at which 18th-century English poet Alexander
their rst coupling was expected. The celebra- Pope put it: when love was all an
tion lasted two weeks, climaxing in a mock mar- easie monarchs care. Charles II
riage between the pair. was simply the king who never
ALAMY

The king allotted Louise a luxurious grew up.

PILLOW TALK
Louise de Kroualle was a beautiful
girl from the French court who was
tutored to become Charles IIs
mistress but many people
suspected her of being a spy

Royal Dynasties 39
ROYAL COUPLES The wedding day

Diana and Prince Charles

leave St Pauls Cathedral in
a horse-drawn carriage
after their wedding in
London on 29 July 1981

The of
royal weddings
AZ TO

Many have been the glorious start to long and happy

relationships, but others were jinxed from the start by
GETTY IMAGES

secrets, scandals, riots and disasters. TRACY BORMAN

takes a look at royal marriages through history

40 Royal Dynasties
 At the wedding of William to
Catherine Middleton, the brides
sister Philippa caused a stir as
a stunning maid of honour

In 1501 Prince Arthur boasted

about his wedding night but
his wife claimed the marriage
was unconsummated

A is for
Arthur
The wedding of Arthur, Prince of
Wales, the eldest son and heir of
B is for
Bridesmaid
Victoria set a new trend by having
12 bridesmaids to carry her train,
C is for
Commoner
Until modern times, it was rare for
commoners to be admitted into the
King Henry VII, to Catherine of which was 18 feet long. After that, privileged world of the monarchy.
Aragon (a princess from Spain) in bridesmaids became an essential part The exception was Charles IIs
1501 proved to be one of the most of proceedings. Princess Alexandra, brother, James, Duke of York (later
controversial in royal history. The (a second cousin of the Queen) who James II), who married two of them.
source of the controversy was exactly married Angus Ogilvy in 1963, chose In 1659, he entered into a private
what happened during the wedding a train so voluminous it slowed her marriage contract with Anne Hyde.
night. The 15-year-old Arthur progress down the aisle to a snails The marriage produced two future
boasted that he had spent the night pace. Her bridesmaids had their work queens, Mary II and Queen Anne.
in Spain. He died four months cut out to keep it in order. Among After his wifes death in 1671, James
later, and Catherine married his them was the 12-year-old Princess married Mary of Modena, who bore
younger brother Henry VIII. When Anne, who looked aghast when the him a son, James Francis Edward
this marriage failed to produce the bride whispered: Your turn next. Stewart, later to be known as the Old
longed-for male heir, Henry sought Anne, the Queens second child, Pretender. Commoners now regu-
to annul it on the grounds that the would indeed be the next royal to larly feature in royal nuptials nota-
Bible forbade a man to take his marry at Westminster Abbey, but not bly Sophie Rhys-Jones (married
ALAMY / GETTY IMAGES

brothers wife. Catherine insisted until 10 years later. In 2011 a brides Prince Edward in 1999); Mike
that her marriage to Arthur had maid of honour, Philippa (Pippa) Tindall (married the Queens
never been consummated. The Middleton, stole the show with her granddaughter Zara Phillips in
debate still rages today. gure-hugging dress when her sister 2011) and Catherine Middleton.
Catherine married Prince William.

Royal Dynasties 41
ROYAL COUPLES The wedding day

F is for
Forbidden
She promised to bring into my life
something that wasnt there. By the
time that he wrote these words,
Edward VIII had already abdicated
from the British throne so that he
might marry Wallis Simpson, the
American divorcee whom he had
met and fallen in love with several
years before. His refusal to give her
up after he became king in 1936 led
to a constitutional crisis that
Edward VIII abdicated so he could scandalised the world. It was one of
marry American divorcee Wallis
Simpson. The couple are shown here the most talked about royal court-
on their wedding day at the Chateau ships in history, but their wedding
de Cando in France on 3 June 1937
was a distinctly low-key affair. They
had to wait until Walliss second

D is for
Dress
Think of a wedding dress, and the
E is for
Edinburgh
When Zara Phillips, said to be the
divorce came through before
marrying, in June 1937, in a private
ceremony in France.

chances are that youre imagining

something white and meringue-like.
But the choice of white is a relatively
recent tradition in the history of
royal weddings. Until the early 19th
Queens favourite granddaughter,
married England rugby star Mike
Tindall in July 2011, she was so
intent upon a low-key wedding that
she chose a location as far away from
G is for
Gold.
At the start of the 20th century,
a nugget of gold from Clogau St
century, the bride could wear any London as possible. Canongate Kirk Davids mine in north Wales was
colour she chose blue was a in Edinburgh is a modest-look- given to the royal family. From this,
particular favourite, as was ing church but boasts a palace the wedding ring of every royal bride
black. All of this changed (Holyroodhouse) and castle from the Queen Mother in 1923 to
with Queen Victoria, who (Edinburgh) in its parish. Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 was
wore white so that she was This was the rst royal crafted. The Queen was presented
as visible as possible to the wedding to take place in with another supply from the
huge crowds that thronged Scotland for 20 years. Royal companys mine at nearby Bontddu
the processional route. Her rebel Zara ensured there in 1986. She gave some of this to her
efforts were rewarded. In were a couple more rsts grandson Prince William after his
her diary entry for that too: no other royal bride engagement was announced to
day, she wrote: I never has worn a tongue stud Catherine Middleton so that his
saw such crowds of to her wedding, and she bride could continue the tradition.
people and they also ignored the
cheered most tradition of taking her
enthusiastically. new husbands name. For the last century,
royal rings have been
made from nuggets
of gold from Wales

Victoria started a
GETTY IMAGES

tradition when she

wed in white so the
crowds could see
her from afar

42 Royal Dynasties
 Charles and Diana set a trend
when, bowing to the demands of
the crowd, they kissed on the
balcony of Buckingham Palace

Henry VIII (painting by Hans Holbein

the Younger) married six times, but
the ceremonies were low-key affairs

H is for
Henry
No A-Z of royal weddings would be
complete without a reference to
Englands most married monarch,
Henry VIII. Although his court-
ships were the talk (and scandal) of
Christendom, his weddings were
surprisingly low-key affairs. He led
his rst bride, Catherine of Aragon,
to the altar with as little fuss as when
he attended a normal church service.
His last wedding, to Katherine Parr,
was just as discreet, taking place in
J is for
Joke
Amid the pomp and ceremony of a
K is for
Kiss
Queen Victoria began the tradition
her private apartments at Hampton typical royal wedding, there is still of displaying the newlywed couple
Court. Ironically, the only wedding room for the odd prank or two. on the balcony of Buckingham
to be celebrated in style was to the Prince Edward was the chief suspect Palace. On the occasion of her
bride he liked least: Anne of Cleves, behind the model satellite dish and daughter Princess Victorias
the so-called Flanders Mare. accompanying Phone Home slogan wedding, she took pity on the
with which his brother Andrews crowds who had been denied a

I is for
Indisposed
Spare a thought for poor Princess
Augusta. She was so averse to the
carriage was festooned after wedding
Sarah Ferguson in 1986. Meanwhile,
Princes William and Harry scrawled
Just Married across the back
window of their fathers car after his
glimpse of the royal couple, and
ordered the royal family out onto
the balcony. Since then, a new
element has been added to the tradi-
tional balcony appearance: a kiss
idea of marrying the boorish Prince wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles, between bride and groom. Prince
Frederick, eldest son and heir of and the words Prince and Charles reluctantly obliged only
King George II, that on her way to Duchess were sprayed on either after exhaustive chanting by the
the ceremony (April 1736) she clung side of the windscreen. Rather less crowds below at his wedding to
to the skirts of his mother, Queen good-humoured was Charles IIs jest Diana; his son William gave a more
Caroline, begging: Please dont at his niece Marys wedding in 1677. convincing performance 30 years
leave me. Her husband-to-be made When he heard the wealthy bride- later. But Charles refused to oblige
matters worse by bellowing in her groom promising to endow her with second time around when marrying
GETTY IMAGES

ear when she stumbled over the all his worldly goods, he told his niece Camilla in 2005, as did his younger
marriage vows. When the ceremony loudly, Put it all in your pocket, for brother Edward at his wedding to
was over, she promptly threw up. tis clear gain. Sophie Rhys-Jones.

Royal Dynasties 43
ROYAL COUPLES The wedding day
When Princess Charlotte
wed Leopold in 1816 she
wore an extravagant
gown preserved at

L is for Lord
Chamberlain
The task of organising a royal
wedding falls to the Lord
Hampton Court Palace

Chamberlain in his capacity as

Impressario of Pageantry to the
Queen. Among the myriad duties
involved is the drafting of the guest
list, and as most full royal weddings
involve at least 2,000 invitees, this is
no mean feat. It is also his job to
arrange the seating plan for the
ceremony. At Westminster Abbey,
this is complicated by the fact that
only 800 of the 2,000-strong
congregation are able to see anything
of the procession, and fewer still
catch a glimpse of the wedding
ceremony itself. Any would-be royal
wedding guest should therefore take
note: the worse the view, the less
important the guest.

M is for
Myrtle
Queen Victoria began another royal
wedding tradition when she ordered
that a sprig of the myrtle from her
bouquet be planted at her favourite
retreat, Osborne House, on the Isle
of Wight. From that sprig grew a
bush that has supplied every other
royal bride since with a cutting for
their bouquet. Although considered
lucky, it has not brought all of them
N is for
Names
The most nerve-wracking part of
any wedding is the exchange of
O is for
Old
The oldest surviving wedding dress
is that of Princess Charlotte, who
the same happiness in marriage that vows. Spare a thought, then, for the married Prince Leopold of Saxe-
Victoria enjoyed. The Duke and royal couples of recent times. Not Coburg-Saaleld in 1816. It was an
Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine only have they had to perform in extraordinarily ornate gown made
and William, embraced the botani- front of a 2,000-strong congregation from silver tissue with a netted silk
cal theme by having an avenue of but the ceremonies have been relayed underskirt, richly embroidered shells
20-foot-tall trees live to up to 700 million people across and bouquets, and trimmed with
installed either side of the globe. Nerves famously Brussels point lace. It was then
the main aisle at their got the better of Lady worth in excess of 10,000 around
wedding, transform- Diana Spencer when she 400,000 in todays money. The
ing Westminster Abbey muddled the order of the gown is now preserved at Hampton
into a veritable forest. names of her husband- Court Palace in Surrey as part of the
MUSEUM OF LONDON

to-be, calling him Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection.

Myrtle doesnt Philip Charles Arthur
always live up to its
billing as the herb of George, instead of Charles
everlasting love Philip Arthur George.

44 Royal Dynasties
 The 2011 wedding of Prince
William and Catherine, pictured
in the state carriage afterwards,
cost 20 million

P is for
Pricey
The wedding of Prince William to
Q is for
Quick
The wedding of Sarah Armstrong-
Catherine Middleton in April 2011 Jones daughter of the Queens
was said to have been one of the most sister Princess Margaret to her
expensive ever staged. Despite the long-term partner, Daniel Chatto,
couples wish to tone down the on 14 July 1994, was one of the most
pageantry in favour of personal rapid in royal history. It took place at
touches (such as a chocolate grooms the small church of St Stephen
cake), the price tag was reportedly Walbrook (designed
20 million. The cost to the econo- by Christopher Wren) in London,
my of the extra public holiday in which holds just 200 guests. The
honour of the wedding was estimat- ceremony was so quick it caught the
ed at a further 3 billion. At least chauffeurs of the guests unaware,
part of this was offset by the substan- and several members of the royal
tial boost that the wedding gave to family, including the Queen, Prince
GETTY IMAGES

High-speed ceremony:
British tourism, however, with an Philip and Princess Diana, were Sarah Armstrong-Jones
extra 4 million people from across obliged to make small talk while on her wedding day
the globe converging on the capital. waiting for their cars to arrive.

Royal Dynasties 45
ROYAL COUPLES The wedding day

An unusual

R S
wedding present
came from a
is for is for concerned
Reluctant Secret American
Throughout history, royal weddings Not all royal weddings were celebrat-
have been made more for policy than ed with the ceremony that we are
for love. But not everyone was used to now. One of the earliest,
prepared to accept this. In 1795 the between William the Conqueror
future George IV proved to be one of and Matilda of Flanders in the 11th
the most reluctant grooms in history. century, was so secret that to this day
Madly in love with Maria Fitzherbert nobody knows exactly when or
(whom, it was rumoured, he had where it took place. They were
secretly married), he steadfastly marrying in deance of a papal ban
refused to wed Caroline of something Henry VIII would have
Brunswick, the bride whom his
father had chosen. Upon rst
meeting her, he had been so horried
that he had called for a brandy and
spent the next 24 hours in a drunken
sympathised with. Edward IV kept
his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville
in 1464 a secret because he did not
dare tell his council he had married a
widow and, worse still, a commoner.
T is for
Turkey
What do you give the couple who
have everything? A turkey,
stupor. The marriage proved a total He only admitted to it ve months apparently. A woman in Brooklyn
disaster and George and Caroline later. It aroused such opposition it sent this bizarre gift to the future
separated after the birth of their only was declared invalid after his death Queen Elizabeth II on her marriage
child, Princess Charlotte. in 1483. to Philip Mountbatten in 1947
because she thought that the
princess was going hungry on the
An 18th-century cartoon same rations as everyone else in
shows Caroline catching her
husband, the future George IV, postwar Britain. To avoid such
in the embraces of his unwanted presents, the royal family
mistress Maria Fitzherbert
now traditionally invites donations
to nominated charities instead.

U is for
Undressed
The consummation of the marriage
was by no means as private an affair
in the past as it is today. At the end
of the wedding day, the ceremony of
undressing would begin. Once
disrobed by her ladies and put into
bed, the bride would be joined by
her husband, led in by a group of
rowdy, drunken friends. This is
when the party really started.
Everyone would drink benediction
posset hot wine mixed with milk,
eggs, sugar and spice then play a
AKG IMAGES/DREAMSTIME

game of ing the stocking, a little

like throwing the bouquet today.
When the couple were at last alone,
they would be serenaded with lewd
songs from the other side of the door,
often until the following morning.

46 Royal Dynasties
 X is for
Xenophobia
Mary Tudor was so intent upon
marrying Philip II of Spain that she
rode roughshod over her subjects
objections to a foreign king. It was
love at rst sight, even though it was
only his portrait she had seen. She
was no less besotted when she met
him, and married him two days
later, on 25 July 1554, at Winchester
Cathedral. The marriage was deeply
unpopular with the English, and
there was a rebellion against it even
before Philip set foot on English soil.

Y is for
York
There have been some notable royal
nuptials at York Minster. The rst
was between Edward III and
Philippa of Hainault in January
1328. They were not put off by the
Westminster Abbey is a popular venue fact that it was still being built and
for royal weddings. Prince Andrew, the
Queens third child, married Sarah the nave lacked a roof. True to form,
Ferguson there on 23 July 1986 the British weather spoilt the day
and the ceremony was conducted in
a heavy snow storm. Six centuries
is for
V is for
Virgin
Elizabeth I was having none of this
wedding caper. She had witnessed
W Westminster
Abbey
Founded in the mid-10th century
and rebuilt by Edward the Confessor
later, in 1961, the Queens cousin the
Duke of Kent chose the more sensible
month of June for his wedding there
to Katharine Worsley.

the disastrous marital history rst of

her mother, Anne Boleyn who
Henry VIII had executed in 1536
and then the string of unfortunate
women who had taken Annes place
almost a hundred years later, the
abbey is steeped in royal history. As
well as being the traditional venue
for coronations, it also soon became
popular for royal weddings. The rst
Z is for
Zzzz
Since Victorian times royal wed-
dings have been held during the day.
as the kings wife. Later on, there was to take place there after the Norman Before, they were always evening
Mary, Queen of Scots, whose conquest was that of Henry I to affairs, conducted in private with a
notorious marital escapades were the Matilda of Scotland, and it was used handful of guests. One such wed-
scandal not only of Scotland but of on numerous occasions up to 1986, ding was that of James IIs daughter
Christendom. Little wonder that when Prince Andrew married Sarah Mary, who married her rst cousin,
Elizabeth resolved to remain a Ferguson there. The abbey was Prince William of Orange, in 1677,
virgin. She famously declared: subsequently abandoned in favour in a ceremony that took place at 9pm
I am married to England. of less grand venues, but it enjoyed a in her bedchamber at St Jamess
glorious resurgence when Catherine Palace, London. The lateness of the
REX FEATURES

Middleton and Prince William hour is something that can never be

chose it in 2011. repeated by future royals not
without a change in the law.

Royal Dynasties 47
 ROYAL F
THE RELATIVES THAT HELP OR HINDER A RULER

+ A handy guide to RAISING

KINGS AND QUEENS
+ The PLANTAGENET family
and its 331-year rule
+ How EDWARD III used his
children to create a dynasty
+ Why GEORGE III
changed royal
private lives

48 Royal Dynasties
AMILIES HAPPY DAYS
Queen Victoria with
Prince Albert and some
of their nine children. She
had a dismal childhood
so made sure that royal
duties did not rule out a
happy and stable life for
her own family
ALAMY

Royal Dynasties 49
ROYAL FAMILIES Raising an heir to the throne

HOW
TO RAISE
A ROYAL

Leading an army; marrying a partner who doesnt speak

English; serving as Gods representative; curing scrofula; or
simply riding a horse a monarchs job description includes
some challenging tasks. TRACY BORMAN offers tips on
making sure your royal children are up to the job

50 Royal Dynasties
 HANDS-ON PARENTS
The Prince and Princess of
Wales, seen leaving hospital after
the birth of William in 1982,
gave their children something
approaching a normal childhood
a successful example of royal
parenting despite the couples
marital differences

FACING PAGE
GETTY IMAGES

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

take time out from their state
duties to play with their young
children, c1845

Royal Dynasties 51
ROYAL FAMILIES Raising an heir to the throne

1 Dont forget the spare heirs

The onerous task facing all royal couples: produce an heir and a spare
Until Britains present queen lion against his father, which failed Even though Henry I was
a fourth son, he was
changed the law of succession so miserably and resulted in William
trained in all the subjects
that girls have equal precedence to depriving him of his inheritance. useful for a ruler
boys, every monarch in history has Upon the latters death, Robert which was
wanted a male heir to inherit the became Duke of Normandy but fortunate as he
throne (plus at least one spare in his younger brother William ended up reigning
from 1100 to 1135
case of accidents). Little wonder Rufus secured the greater prize
that the rstborn son has always of being King of England. When
been the focus of most attention Rufus was assassinated in
when it comes to their upbringing Englands New Forest several
and education: after all, they have years later, his youngest
to be trained to be king one day. brother Henry seized the throne,
Even though she doted upon her becoming
rstborn son, Robert Curthose, the most
Matilda of Flanders gave her successful
husband William the Conqueror of all
three other boys. Each of them Williams
beneted from an exemplary sons.
upbringing for a royal prince, which
included military training as well as
academic subjects. As a result, the
three spare heirs all grew into
highly competent and formidable
young men. By contrast, Robert
was feckless, hot-headed and
intemperate. He later led a rebel-

How not to do it
Englands most famous king, Henry
VIII, was never destined for the
throne. That honour was reserved
for his elder brother, Arthur, upon
whose upbringing his father Henry
VII lavished great attention and
expense, crafting him into a leader
of men. By contrast, Henry was
spoilt by his mother, Elizabeth of
York, and allowed to indulge
whatever pastimes he wished.
Arthurs death thrust Henry into
the spotlight, but by then his
ALAMY

character was fatally set.

52 Royal Dynasties
 Charles I (160049) was devoted to
his queen, Henrietta Maria, who was
his condante and companion. Their
children included two future kings

2 Put your spouse rst

and your children second
Loving and respectful royal parents create sensible princes and princesses
At the heart of some of the most
successful royal parenting exam-
as king but he was a devoted hus-
band to Henrietta Maria, and togeth-
How not to do it
ples in history is a strong and er they raised a brood of happy, In the early years of her marriage,
stable marriage. Take Edward III healthy children who included two Eleanor of Aquitaine was passion-
and Philippa of Hainault, for future kings. ately in love with her husband
example. Their marriage, in 1328, Queen Victoria was famously Henry, Duke of Normandy and
was made for love as well as policy. devoted to her husband, Prince Count of Anjou (later Henry II) and
It produced nine children who Albert, and although they doted on bore him eight children. But their
survived into adulthood. Having their children, their love for each tempestuous relationship eventu-
learned from their parents exam- other always remained paramount. ally turned sour and in 1173 Eleanor
ple, most of these children went on Putting ones spouse ahead of ones supported a revolt by one of their
to have long and happy marriages. children in this way seems to have sons against her husband. Henry
Edward IVs marriage to Elizabeth ensured that the latter grow up as had her locked up as a punishment
Woodville was another great love grounded and (for the most part) and she was only released upon his
match, and despite raising their sensible individuals, with an excellent death 16 years later.
large brood amid the turmoil of the role model for their own marriage as
Wars of the Roses, they created a adults. But with most royal marriages
happy and nurturing environment being made for politics rather than
GETTY IMAGES

for their children. The ill-fated love, this was one parenting tactic
Charles I might have been a failure that was not always easy to achieve.

Royal Dynasties 53
ROYAL FAMILIES Raising an heir to the throne

3 Protect royal children from

the glare of publicity
Many monarchs court popularity, but too much exposure is damaging and counter-productive
When it was announced in Decem-
ber 2012 that the Duchess of
ham Palace, during the weeks leading
up to the birth. When the duchess How not to do it
Cambridge was expecting her rst was admitted on 22 July in the early Henry VIII was so convinced that
child, the worlds media was thrown stages of labour, the world held its his second wife, Anne Boleyn,
into a frenzy. Since marrying Prince breath. But she and William managed would give him a son that when she
William in April 2011, speculation had to conceal the birth of their son was expecting their rst child, he
been rife about when she would George for a few hours before it was prepared to shout it from the
become pregnant particularly as ofcially announced. rooftops. As well as planning jousts
Williams mother Diana conceived Although they dutifully presented and reworks, he instructed his
just 12 weeks after her wedding. him to the world the next day, they scribes to draft letters announcing
But William has always been subsequently made it clear that their the birth of a prince to all the
determined to protect his family son would be raised away from the heads of state in Europe. When
from the paparazzi, who, it was glare of publicity. The same is true of Anne gave birth on 7 September,
claimed, had hounded his mother their daughter Charlotte, born in May the scribes had to go back to those
to her death. There was, however, 2015. Safeguarding the privacy of letters and add ss to the word. She
little that he could do to prevent their children in this way will help had given Henry another useless
the media circus setting up camp ensure that they girl. The jousts and reworks were
outside the Lindo Wing of St Marys enjoy as normal canceled immediately.
Hospital in London, as well as at an upbringing
Kensington Palace and Bucking- as possible.

After the experience

of his mother, Diana,
Prince William was
determined to maintain
a private life with his
children and to shield
them from the
paparazzi

GETTY IMAGES
 George II disliked his son
Prince Frederick, and sidelined
him in ofcial affairs. The
prince consoled himself with
his passion for music, art and
theatre. The Music Party of
1733 shows him performing in
a family concert

4 Take time to cherish your children

Royal children, like the rest of us, need the loving attention of their parents
Most royal children had little contact royal courtiers, who were more
How not to do it
with their parents (at least by todays accustomed to displays of grandeur
standards), but there were some and strict protocol, he was often George IIIs father, Prince
notable exceptions. Far from being spotted playing with his small Frederick, suffered a horrendous
ashamed of her daughter Elizabeth children on the carpet. Unusually for upbringing at the hands of his
(who should have been a boy), Anne a monarch, he was especially fond of parents, George II and Queen
Boleyn so doted on her that she had his girls, whereas his sons later Caroline. They despised their
a special velvet cushion made so that proved something of a disappoint- eldest son and left him behind in
the baby could lay next to her when ment. His wife Charlotte was pains- Hanover when they accompanied
she was conducting court business. taking in her concern for the chil- his grandfather George I to take up
Two centuries later, George III was drens welfare and education, but was the British throne. Frederick was
similarly besotted with his children a much less relaxed parent, display- eventually allowed to join his
all 15 of them. He established ing little spontaneous affection. family, but they made no secret of
Buckingham Palace as a happy family After the turbulent marital history their loathing for him, and his
home, and he also took his growing of so many of his predecessors, mother once famously declared
brood on regular visits to the country King Georges subjects loved him that he made her want to vomit.
retreats of Kew and Richmond. The for his devotion to his family and his
king never allowed his royal duties to simple, moral principles. He gave his
GETTY IMAGES

disrupt his family time and he children an upbringing that many

favoured an informal and relaxed other royal offspring would probably
domestic life. To the dismay of some have envied.

Royal Dynasties 55
ROYAL FAMILIES Raising an heir to the throne

5 Appoint the right nursery staff

When royal children are raised away from their parents, faithful retainers are crucial
For centuries, protocol dictated the child. She sang her to sleep with
How not to do it
that royal offspring should be Welsh lullabies and taught her the
raised not by their parents, but by rudiments of that language as she Another member of Elizabeths
a team of nurses, governesses and grew older. She accompanied childhood staff was Katherine
tutors. Often, royal babies were Elizabeth on her frequent changes of (Kat) Astley, her governess. Like
sent away from court in early residence during her childhood and Blanche, Kat was utterly devoted
infancy and established in their provided much-needed stability in a to the princess, but she was
own households. This was the case fragile and turbulent world, particu- notoriously impetuous and
with the future Elizabeth I, packed larly after the sudden loss of her indiscreet. When Elizabeth was a
off to Hateld House, north of mother, Anne Boleyn. teenager, Kat foolishly encouraged
London, at just three months with a The young princess came to trust the irtatious advances of the
veritable army of attendants. in her steady kindness and unswerv- philandering Thomas Seymour
They included Blanche Parry, a ing loyalty, which provided a bench- towards her young charge. In 1549
young Welsh lady given the task of mark against which all of her other that mistake led Kat to a short
overseeing the four rockers of the attendants were measured (and spell of imprisonment in the Tower
infant princesss cradle. This was an usually fell short). Blanche devoted of London.
important task, for it would keep the rest of her life to Elizabeth, and
the child quiet and amenable, and the latter kept her old childhood
ensure favourable reports of her nurse as one of her closest compan-
could be sent back to court. She ions when she became queen. By
quickly struck up a close relation- Blanches death in 1590, she had
ship with Elizabeth and doted upon served Elizabeth for 56 years.

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Henry VIII shown on a visit to his

son Prince Edward, who was
raised away from court from an
early age. The prince, born in
1537, is seen in a walking frame

56 Royal Dynasties
 Victoria had a sad and restrictive
childhood, so she made sure
her children had plenty of fun, albeit
of the instructive kind. The family is
photographed here on vacation at
Osborne House in 1854

6 Help children learn through play

Fun and productive activities help royal children become rounded individuals
In stark contrast to her own Albert at the going rate. Meanwhile,
How not to do it
childhood, Queen Victoria ensured the princesses learned how to bake
that all nine of her children enjoyed and would often serve tea to their Victorias own childhood was, as
a happy upbringing. The best times parents and guests. They had a she put it, rather melancholy.
were spent at Osborne House, their well-furnished kitchen, and ran Her mother, the Duchess of Kent,
was extremely protective, and
ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2015

quiet and retired home on the Isle a toy grocers shop stocked with
of Wight. Here, Albert built a Swiss basics and exotic spices. They also Victoria was raised largely isolated
Cottage for his young children. kept accounts which their father from other children under the
Hidden in the woods on the reviewed. Each child had their own Kensington System, an elaborate
Osborne estate, this wooden chalet garden plot where they tended fruit, set of rules and protocols. Victoria
became the childrens favourite vegetables and owers using minia- was obliged to share a bedroom
retreat. Albert intended it as a ture tools and their own mono- with her mother, and was only
place where his offspring could grammed wheelbarrows. The produce allowed to see people deemed
play at being adults and learn the was assessed by the under-gardener suitable. Even by the standards of
skills he believed would make them and, if good enough, Albert would royal childhood, it was a restricted
better people and rulers. pay the market rate to the child who and stiing existence, and one that
The older boys, Bertie and Alfred, had grown it. Victoria rebelled against as soon
helped lay the foundations for the Victoria and Alberts children as she became queen.
cottage. Victoria proudly noted in cherished such happy memories of
her journal that Alfred had worked Swiss Cottage that, when they were
as hard and steadily as a regular all grown up, they returned with their
labourer, and he was paid by own children.

Royal Dynasties 57
ROYAL FAMILIES Raising an heir to the throne

Princess Diana with her children

William and Harry at an amuse-
ment park in 1993. It was one of
the normal childhood activities
that she made sure the two
princes experienced

7 Keep in touch with the real world

Growing up in a raried atmosphere can mean monarchs are unable to relate to people

Diana broke the mould of royal

motherhood, as well as of being a
would take them to school and
collect them whenever she could. She
How not to do it
princess. From the very start, she took them for fun days out to places James I (James VI in Scotland) and
was determined to give her boys as such as Thorpe Park, a popular Anne of Denmark are among the
normal an upbringing as possible. theme park, and organised childrens worst examples of royal parents.
Unlike every royal mother before parties for them. On one famous They invested little time or atten-
her, Diana insisted upon a hospital occasion, she took them on the tion in their children, consigning
birth for both her sons, William and London Underground to Piccadilly them instead to all the strict
Harry, rather than giving birth at Circus and caught the bus back to protocols and formality of a royal
home as was the tradition for royal Kensington Palace. She also took upbringing. This had disastrous
wives. All subsequent royal mothers them to McDonalds, but insisted that repercussions for their second son,
have followed suit. As well as being they wait in line like everyone else. the future Charles I, who grew up
the rst royal baby to be born in Prince Charles, too, was a more with an unpredictable temper and
hospital, Prince William was also hands-on father than his predecessors. a dangerously exaggerated sense
the rst to be taken on a royal trip. He attended his sons births and was of entitlement. The rest is history.
Diana would not hear of leaving not averse to changing the occasional
him behind, not least because she nappy. He and Diana ensured William
was breast-feeding another rst and Harry would grow up as grounded
for a royal wife. young men, despite their status one
GETTY IMAGES

Dianas quest for normality of the most successful examples of

continued as her boys grew up. She royal parenting in history.

58 Royal Dynasties
 8 Encourage sibling rivalry
A competitive atmosphere helps mould ambitious and capable leaders
Although this ies in the face of Bloody Mary I and Elizabeth I were
How not to do it
modern parenting advice, the need set up in separate establishments
to produce a brood of highly fostered an even greater sense of There is a ne line between healthy
capable, ambitious and authorita- rivalry between them. sibling rivalry and all-out civil war,
tive heirs to strengthen the dynasty Boys were encouraged to compete as William the Conqueror would
inspired many royal parents to in the eld of combat. This paid discover. In the closing years of his
foster an atmosphere of competi- dividends for Edward IV, Richard III reign, all three of his sons were at
tiveness in the nursery. and their two brothers, who had such loggerheads that they
Regardless of their place in the battled to outdo each other as threatened to destroy the Anglo-
order of succession, most royal children, but whose combined military Norman kingdom that he had
children were given an exemplary prowess as adults secured victory for fought so hard to establish.
education. Even if they were not the House of York in the Wars of the
destined for the throne, princes Roses. The warlike sons of Eleanor of
were expected to play an active Aquitaine fought each other as both
role in war, politics or the church children and adults, but two of them
when they reached maturity, while went on to become kings of England,
their sisters were groomed to make ensuring that their formidable mothers
prestigious political marriages. legacy lived on for generations.
Royal nurseries were therefore
often hothouses of learning, with
each sibling trying to outdo the
other in accomplishments. The fact
that some royal children notably

Edward IV and his family,

shown in c1477. Edward and
his brothers military
training as children helped
when it came to the Wars of
the Roses, beginning in 1455
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Royal Dynasties 59
ROYAL FAMILIES Plantagenet rule

ONE OF A LONG
LINE OF KINGS
Richard II (reigned
137799) was of the
Plantagenet dynasty, which
descended from French count
Geoffrey of Anjou and ruled
England from 1154 to 1485

FACING PAGE
Geoffreys badge was the
broom plant (planta
genista), after which
Englands most resilient
royal family was named

60 Royal Dynasties
 ENGLANDS
ULTIMATE
FAMILY
DRAMA
That a single dynasty, the Plantagenets, was able to
rule England for 331 years, when disease or violence
GETTY IMAGES

could transform the political landscape overnight, is

truly remarkable, says ROBERT BARTLETT

Royal Dynasties 61
ROYAL FAMILIES Plantagenet rule

M
onarchies are now rare in But long-lived kings presented problems too. Heirs
the world, numbering might get impatient and fractious, while the so-called
around 20 in a system of dotage of Edward III (when the king was in his 60s, a rela-
almost 200 independent tively youthful age) created serious problems, which af-
states. But for hundreds of fected English politics and undermined the Plantagenet
years monarchy was the war effort in France. Kings were meant to have sons, but
way that politics worked not too many. Given the high rate of infant mortality, it
in most countries. And was best if they produced numerous children. Edward III
monarchy meant that power was in the hands of a family and his queen, Philippa, had at least 12 children; nine of
a dynasty and hence politics was family politics. It was these survived infancy, and ve of the nine were boys.
not elections that shaped political life, but the births, This ensured that the dynasty would continue in the male
marriages and deaths of the ruling family. This added line, but it also stored up trouble for the future, with many
further unpredictability to the unpredictable business royal descendants ready to make claims if given a chance.
of ruling. But kings without sons were vulnerable get rid of
Between 1154 and 1485, a period of 331 years, England them, and there would be no heirs to ght back and pursue
was ruled by one family. Every king during that time was revenge. When Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne
a descendant in the male line of a French count, Geoffrey from Richard II, he faced opposition, criticism and, some-
of Anjou, whose badge the broom plant planta genista times, rebellion, but Richard had no son to fan the ames.
in Latin is the origin of their name: the Plantagenets. In contrast, when Henry VI was removed by Edward IV
The Plantagenet dynasty had its origin in the Loire val- in 1461, there was a son, and Edwards regime was not
ley, and the rst two Plantagenet kings of England, truly secure until the killing of that son 10 years later. A
Henry II and Richard the Lionheart, spent much more son or two was the safe formula for a medieval king.
time in France than in England. This French connection These sons became active early. Henry II, the rst
continued throughout the Middle Ages. The body of Plantagenet king, started as the son of a French count, but
Henry III lies in Westminster Abbey, but he commanded by the time he was 20, he had fought and married his way
that after his death his heart should be interred in the to become one of the most powerful rulers in Europe.
Plantagenet family mausoleum of Fontevrault in the Loire This early start was not unusual. This was a world in
valley. Richard II was sometimes called Richard of which teenagers could rule. Henrys son Richard became
Bordeaux from the place of his birth, while Edward IV Duke of Aquitaine, ruling a third of France, aged 14.
was born in Rouen.
Despite these ties with France, the Plantagenets
are Englands longest-reigning dynasty. It was their births,
marriages and deaths that shaped the political history of
England and much of France. They provide a perfect ex-
ample of what dynastic rule meant.
Most Plantagenets, like most people in the Middle
Ages, died before their 10th birthday. Those who survived
who are the ones we know something about might live
a fair bit longer. The average age at death of the Plantagenet
kings was 45. The unlucky ones, like Edward V, one
of the princes in the Tower, did not make it to their
13th birthday. The longest survivor, Edward I, died at the
age of 68.
Sudden and unexpected deaths, either through vio-
lence, like that of Richard I, or from disease, like that of
Henry V, could transform the political world overnight.
AKG IMAGES

From both these deaths the eventual outcome was

Richard Is tomb at Fontevrault Abbey in the Loire valley, where the
the expulsion of the Plantagenets from most of their Plantagenet dynasty had its roots. Richard spent far more time in
French possessions. France than in England

62 Royal Dynasties
 FAMILY STRIFE Henry Bolingbroke (on horseback) confronts King Richard II at Flint Castle in north Wales. When Bolingbroke
deposed Richard to become Henry IV, the ousted kings ability to ght back was hamstrung by his lack of a son

Edward III took control of the government, killing his (and by) queen-mothers, and, of course, endless negotia-
mothers lover and sending her into permanent house ar- tions about future brides.
rest, when he was 18. His son, the Black Prince, won his For a dynasty to survive, it had to reproduce. And by
spurs at the battle of Crcy, aged 16. Richard II confront- the 11th century, in most parts of western Europe, this
ed and won-over a crowd of armed rebels when he was 14. meant marriage as dened by the church. Earlier, more
casual arrangements had been replaced or marginalised.

B
ut, if youthful kings and princes could William the Conquerors alternative nickname was
certainly exercise powers of command ef- William the Bastard, but during the Plantagenet centu-
fectively, the accession of an infant was a ries illegitimacy was taken seriously as a bar to succession.
dangerous moment. At this juncture, None of the numerous illegitimate children of the
learned men would quote the line from Plantagenets raised a claim. When Richard III decided to
Ecclesiastes 10, 16: Woe to the land take the throne from his nephews, he thought it necessary
where a child is king! Unlike earlier periods, when an to undertake an elaborate process to declare them illegiti-
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

adult male was the preferred successor, the rules of succes- mate. Even if no one believed his arguments, he felt it a
sion that applied in the Plantagenet centuries took no ac- case he had to make: if the princes were not of legitimate
count of the age of the heir. Henry III came to the throne birth, they could not be kings.
aged nine, Richard II aged 10, poor Edward V at the age An unusual example of illegitimate children rising high
of 12. This meant regencies, rival factions, decisions about is provided by the offspring of John of Gaunt and his mis-

It was a world in which teenagers could rule. The

future Richard I presided over a third of France, aged 14

Royal Dynasties 63
ROYAL FAMILIES Plantagenet rule

tress Katherine Swynford, though they needed the backing them French, indicating the central place of France in the
of both pope and king to be declared legitimate. Katherine Plantagenet world. Indeed, between 1066 and 1464, no
was the daughter of one of the knights of Hainault who had English king married an English woman.
come to England with Philippa of Hainault, queen of One of the jobs of queens was to produce children, es-
Edward III. Katherine had married an English knight but pecially sons. Because men are capable of fathering chil-
had also been recognised as Gaunts mistress. dren longer than women are capable of bearing them, it
The high-born ladies of the royal dynasty were not was not uncommon for kings to remarry after the death of
amused when John of Gaunt and Katherine subsequently a queen. Edward I produced 16 children with his rst
got married. We will not go anywhere she is, they said. wife, Eleanor of Castile. He then had three more when he
It would be a disgrace if this duchess, who is low born was in his 60s with his young bride, Margaret of France.
and was his mistress for a long time when he was married, Queens were also meant to be mediators, softening the
should have precedence over us. Our hearts would break harsh masculine power of their husbands. A famous
with grief, and with good reason. But the ladies were example is Philippa of Hainault pleading for the life of
ignored. The children of Gaunt and Katherine were given the burghers of Calais, six men from the French town
the aristocratic-sounding surname Beaufort; they and whom Edward III had ordered to be hanged. A less well-
their descendants were to be one of the most important known example of the same queens intercession occurred
political families in England for the next century. And early in King Edwards reign, when the wooden stands set
Margaret Beaufort, Katherines great-granddaughter, was up for Philippa and her ladies to watch a tournament
the mother of the rst of the Tudors, Henry VII. collapsed. No one was badly hurt, but the carpenters
would have suffered if she had not pleaded for mercy with

H
owever, most ruling families used her husband.
formal marriages as an essential part And queens were often erce champions of the rights of
of their strategy and hence they be- their sons. The Plantagenet dynasty owed its crown to the
came a never-ending subject of de- determined and persistent efforts of Matilda, daughter of
bate, discussion and disagreement. Henry I, who never gave up the ght until her son, the
Marriage was indeed one of the future Henry II, was recognised as heir to the English
prime preoccupations of this dynastic world. There were throne. She was never queen, but she kept the title em-
always marriage negotiations going on, many leading no- press from her rst marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor,
where. Sometimes this even involved babies being com- and she lived for 13 years after Henrys accession with her
mitted to future brides or bridegrooms. Henry the Young status as the kings mother.
King, son of Henry II, was married at the age of ve to In the last decades of Plantagenet rule, it was Margaret
the even younger daughter of the king of France. of Anjou, queen of the disabled Henry VI, who led the
Contemporaries noted with some disapproval this mar- struggle for the rights of their son, Edward, Prince of
riage of little children still wailing in the cradle, but it Wales. She was described as a great and strong laboured
brought Henry II the important border territory of the woman. At the low point of their cause, Margaret lobbied
Vexin in northern France as the baby princesss dowry. persistently for French support, and even agreed to an
Marriages at this social level were about power and alliance with the Earl of Warwick, a former chief enemy
property, especially the forging of links with other ruling who had fallen out with the Yorkist side. But the apparent
dynasties. For the rst three centuries of Plantagenet rule, triumph of 1470, when Warwick put Henry VI back on
the queens of England were all foreign, the majority of the throne, was followed by the crushing defeat of 1471,

Edward I produced 16 children with his rst

wife, Eleanor of Castile. He had three more when
he was in his 60s, with his young bride, Margaret
64 Royal Dynasties
 A QUEENS INTERCESSION Calais surrenders to Edward III, Englands seventh Plantagenet king, in a 15th-century illustration. Only the
intervention of Edwards wife, Philippa of Hainault, prevented him from having the six burghers of the town hanged

the deaths of Warwick, Edward Prince of Wales and tended far beyond the boundaries of states. Dynasties
Henry VI. Margaret was a prisoner but, with the death of looked out for their family interests, not for those of a
her son, no longer had a cause for which to ght. nation or people (insofar as these can be said to have
interests). And the horizons of the Plantagenet dynasty

F
or the sons who did not succeed to the extended well beyond England and France. Richard the
throne, some kind of provision had to be Lionheart conquered Cyprus, establishing what was to be
made. And it could be spectacular. In sev- the most long-lived of the crusader states, and Edward I
eral cases, the younger sons of the was knighted not in Westminster or Windsor, but
Plantagenet dynasty aimed at crowns for in Burgos, on the occasion of his marriage to Eleanor
themselves: John, son of Henry II, was of Castile.
meant to be king of Ireland and was sent a peacock crown Edward named one of his sons Alfonso, and this child
although he had to settle for Lord of Ireland instead, a was for many years his heir apparent. If Alfonso had not
title the kings of England bore down to the time of the died at the age of 10, Edward I might have been succeeded
Tudors, when it was upgraded to King of Ireland. by Alfonso I and English naming patterns could have
Edmund, son of Henry III, was, famously, proposed as been different to this day, with Alfonso as normal a name
king of Sicily, although the only result of this scheme was as Edward.
an explosion of resentment among the English baronage In a dynastic world, everything hung on the thread of a
and the civil war of 126465. John of Gaunt, son of vulnerable human life. This life might be wiped away by
Edward III, claimed and fought for the crown of Castile. illness at any time. Or it could be unbalanced, as in the
The only one actually to establish himself on a distant case of Henry VI, whose mental illness came upon him in
throne, however, was Richard of Cornwall, the younger the summer of 1453. It is sometimes thought that Henrys
brother of Henry III, who became King of the Romans, madness can be traced to his maternal grandfather,
AKG IMAGES

which meant Holy Roman Emperor elect, and was Charles VI of France, but they had very different forms of
crowned in Charlemagnes old capital of Aachen. illness. Charles had remarkable fantasies, such as the
Dynasticism was characterised by ambitions that ex- belief that he was made of glass and so might break, but

Royal Dynasties 65
ROYAL FAMILIES Plantagenet rule

AKG IMAGES

LAYING CLAIM TO FRANCE Henry VIs family tree, shaped as a French lily in order to signify English kings claims to the
French crown. The Plantagenet period was dominated by war in France

66 Royal Dynasties
 Henry simply slumped into a stupor, failing to register
even the birth of his only son.
Sudden sickness and madness were part of the uncer-
tainty about the succession a recurrent anxiety in the
dynastic world. Naturally, people sought out methods to
diminish that uncertainty and to have guidance for the
future. Some of these methods were dangerous, as Eleanor
Cobham found out. Eleanor had married Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester, brother of Henry V, in 1428. She had
been his mistress for some years, and once he had his rst
marriage annulled, she was able to become his wife. After
the death of his older brother, Humphrey was next in line
for the throne. If Henry VI died, Humphrey would be
king and Eleanor queen.
Eleanor was perhaps unwise. She consulted two astrol-
ogers to see whether the young king would live and
obtained potions from a wise woman to help her conceive
she could be the mother of kings. The astrologers, both
of them respectable and learned men, told the duchess
that Henry VI would suffer a life-threatening illness in
the summer of 1441.

T
he events of that summer were in fact
very different. Duke Humphrey had
his enemies, as well as his ambitions,
The Plantagenets were always looking to expand the dynasty.
and they saw their chance when they As with many marriages, that of Edward I (top) to Eleanor of
heard that his wife had been dabbling Castile (below) was for political reasons
in magic and getting predictions of the
kings illness or death. In July 1441 Eleanor was arrested But another permanent threat was simple physical
and tried on charges of necromancy. She admitted that, in violence in what was a complex and brutal world. In the
order to help her become pregnant, she had obtained po- medieval period there were 58 male descendants of Count
tions from a wise woman a phrase that her accusers Geoffrey of Anjou (excluding those who died as babies).
would interpret without a doubt as a witch. She was Of these, 23 died through violence 16 of them (almost
forced to repent her errors. three-quarters) in the 15th century, the last century of
One of Eleanors astrologers died in the Tower of Plantagenet rule.
London, while the other was hanged, drawn and quar- This century clearly belongs to what the great medie-
tered. The wise woman that she had consulted was valist Maitland called the centuries of blood, after an
burned alive. Eleanor herself had to do penance, walking earlier period when the upper classes had been relatively
barefoot to the church. She was divorced from Duke less bloodthirsty in their feuds. And this bloodletting
AKG IMAGES

Humphrey and spent the remaining 11 years of her life as marked the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, as Henry
a prisoner in remote and windy castles. She was never the Tudor picked up the bloody crown at Bosworth eld. But
mother of kings. it was certainly not the end of dynastic politics.

There were 58 male descendants of Count Geoffrey of

Anjou Of these, 23 died through violence
Royal Dynasties 67
ROYAL FAMILIES Edward IIIs dynastic ambition

POWER GAMES
Edward III grants his son,
the Black Prince, the
principality of Aquitaine
(south-west France). By using
his offspring as pawns in
alliances, the king hoped
to wield power over a
confederation of dependent
states bound by family ties

FACING PAGE Edward III,

seen on his great seal

68 Royal Dynasties
 KING
EDWARD III
The family man

King Edward IIIs wife and children played central

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

roles in his private life and his dreams of empire.

MARK ORMROD explains the significance of the
kings celebrated family in his dynastic ambition

Royal Dynasties 69
ROYAL FAMILIES Edward IIIs dynastic ambition

I
n the winter of 134243 King Edward III of In the conventional courtly manner, the couple ex-
England spent several months away from changed sumptuous gifts like the spectacular sapphire
home ghting in Brittany, France. He kept in brooch that Edward gave Philippa at New Year 1332.
close touch with his family by letter, writing More tellingly, they spent as much of their time as possi-
regularly to his wife, Queen Philippa, as ble in each others company.
his sweetheart. Philippa was often entrusted with important functions
Soon after returning home, Edward headed of state while the king was away ghting in what is now
for the queens manor of Havering, north-east termed the Hundred Years War. This conict began in
of London, where he was reunited with a number of his 1337 when Philip VI of France and Edward III declared
growing brood of children. The king, delighting in this war in a long-standing dispute over the English-held
moment of domesticity, chose to eat dinner in the com- duchy of Aquitaine (the war would continue after
pany of Lionel of Antwerp, then aged four, John of Gaunt, Edwards death in 1377, ending in 1453). On some occa-
who had just turned three, and Edmund of Langley, a sions, Philippa even accompanied her husband to mili-
toddler of 18 months surely a riotous homecoming. tary headquarters in northern England and Flanders (a
Edward III, who reigned from 1327 to 1377, was noth- state encompassing parts of what are now Belgium and
ing if not a family man. For 40 years and more, his devo- northern France). And where the queen went, the chil-
tion to his children was the primary driver of policy. dren often went too.
It is easy to see why Edward should have invested so

E
much in his dynasty. His parents, Edward II and Queen dwards contemporaries were clear that
Isabella, had been notoriously at odds with each other. his abundance of offspring was a bless-
When the prince, born in 1312, was 12 years old, the ing. In 1362, on the kings 50th birth-
queen had openly charged the kings favourite, Hugh day, parliament was told that God has
Despenser, with creating discord between the royal cou- truly blessed him in many ways, and es-
ple. Retreating to France with her son, Isabella had begun pecially in the begetting of his sons.
an adulterous relationship with Roger Mortimer, with Between 1330 and 1355 Queen Philippa had at least
whom she invaded England. Edward II was deposed in 12 pregnancies, and nine children survived to their teens.
1327, and within a year he was declared dead, most likely Edward was an indulgent father. The oldest son,
murdered by Rogers henchmen. When Edward III even- Edward of Woodstock (later known as the Black Prince),
tually seized his moment in 1330 and removed his mother was set up with his own household while still an infant.
and Mortimer from power, he referred publicly to the The younger children remained in the queens care. After
trauma that had been suffered within the ruling house. the infant Prince Lionel was betrothed in 1342, his an-
The process of political healing now depended, to a ce, the 10-year-old Elizabeth de Burgh, joined him in
signicant degree, on the restoration of dynastic unity. the royal nursery. Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest,
One way of achieving this was to punish the defectors. was kept close: the aged Edward III lavished large sums
Isabella may not have been locked away by her son, but on the gure-hugging tunics he favoured.
she was subjected to an elaborate regime of religious ob- From birth, Edwards children were caught up in a cease-
servance designed to demonstrate her public contrition. less round of dynastic negotiations. In 1340, Edward took
The real focus of attention, however, was on the the extraordinary decision to announce himself King of
current and future generations. France by right of descent through
Edward III was supremely his mother. To challenge the rul-
lucky in his own bride. ing Valois dynasty, he had to
ALAMY

Edward and Philippa of nd as many allies as possible.

Hainault (in modern-day
Belgium) had been married in
1328 to seal a political alli- MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN
Efgies of EdwardIII and his
ance. But if the teenage couple queen, Philippa, in Londons
were not in love at the start, Westminster Abbey. They seem
to have been made for each
they quickly developed a other, spending as much time
strong bond of affection. as possible together

70 Royal Dynasties
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

DYNASTIC AMBITION
Edward III used his children as diplomatic pawns.
He tried to promote John of Gaunt (left) as heir to
the Scottish throne, while a strategic marriage
helped make Lionel (right) lieutenant of Ireland

Edward kept in close touch with his family by letter,

writing regularly to his wife, Queen Philippa,
as his sweetheart

Royal Dynasties 71
ROYAL FAMILIES Edward IIIs dynastic ambition

EDWARD IIIS DYNASTIC

The use of royal children as diplomatic pawns had its
fair share of casualties: Princess Isabella was jilted by the
AMBITION IN EUROPE
The king made full use of his family by placing
Count of Flanders in 1347; and poor Princess Joan be-
them in strategic positions and marriages
came one of the rst English victims of the Black Death
when she died at Bordeaux in 1348, en route to her wed-
ding with the heir to the throne of Castile (a territory in
modern-day Spain).
But Edward persevered. Only the older royal children
1 Ireland
were allowed some say in their choice of partners. The Run by Lionel of Clarence as lieutenant of Edward III
between 1362 and 1366. Lionels rst wife was an
Black Prince, heir to the throne and a bachelor in his early important Anglo-Irish heiress; the family interests in
30s, surprised everyone in 1361 by marrying his cousin, the lordship were later inherited by the Mortimer
descendants of Lionels daughter.
Joan of Kent. The king, eager to make the best of the situ-
ation, quickly negotiated the papal dispensations that the
cousins needed to marry, but had neglected to obtain. He
organised a second wedding for them at Windsor Castle,
and hosted a great tournament in London around the pro-
vocative theme of the seven deadly sins.

A
ll that said, it is clear that Edward III
intended his children to serve, and
benet from, his great scheme of stra- 4 Brittany
tegic alliances. The king viewed his The dukes of Brittany were ancient allies of
the crown of England. Edward III intervened
wars as the means of re-assembling in the succession crisis in the duchy in 1342
that great agglomeration of lordships to support John de Montfort and his heir.
across the British Isles and the continent over which The younger John later married Edward IIIs
daughter Mary and, after her death, a
Henry II had ruled in the 12th century. In 1346 Edward step-daughter of the Black Prince.
defeated Philip VI of France at the battle of Crcy and
went on to take Calais in 1347. Philips son, John II, was
taken prisoner by the Black Prince at Poitiers in 1356. The
capture of David II of Scotland in 1346 and of John II of
France in 1356 gave Edward the diplomatic leverage that
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY / GETTY IMAGES / MAP ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN SANDERS

he thought might bring his ambitions to fruition.

In the early 1360s the king rolled out his great plan. He
would give up the claim to the throne of France, but would
have sovereign control of much of northern and western
France. The Black Prince was made Prince of Aquitaine
6 Castile
In 1362 Edward III made an alliance
and sent to Bordeaux to head up a glittering new with Peter I the Cruel as a result of
Plantagenet court. The Duke of Brittany, who was mar- which the Black Prince intervened
against the pretender Henry of
ried rst to the English princess Mary and then to a step- Trastamara and won the battle of
daughter of the Black Prince, would acknowledge the Njera (1367). After Peters death,
King of England as his liege lord. Lionel of Antwerp, cre- his two heiresses, claimants to the
throne, married John of Gaunt and
ated Duke of Clarence, took up the destiny marked out Edmund of Langley.
for him through his marriage to a great Anglo-Irish heiress
and assumed the lieutenancy of Ireland.
As for John of Gaunt, he would be adopted by the
childless David II as heir to the throne of Scotland.
Edmund of Langley would, it was hoped, marry Margaret
de Male, heiress to the Count of Flanders, and bring with-
in his fathers sway a vast new domain in the Low

72 Royal Dynasties
 2 Scotland
Claimed by Edward III for
one of his younger sons
at various points between
1348 and 1363. John of
2 Gaunt became the preferred
candidate from the mid-1350s.
John was married to the heiress
A c1380 portrait of
to the duchy of Lancaster in
John of Gaunt, who
1358 and was granted the title had designs on power
1 of Earl of Moray by David II of in Scotland
Scotland in 1359.

3 3 Wales
The principality had been subsumed into
the English crown by Edward I. Edward III
made his eldest son Prince of Wales in
1343. Edward of Woodstock (the Black
Prince) ruled the principality, as an
absentee, until his death in 1376.

5
7
5 Milan
Centre of operations of the Visconti family,
rulers of Lombardy, and scene of the
wedding of Lionel of Antwerp and Violante
Visconti in 1368. Lionel died at nearby Alba
later the same year, under what some
6 thought were suspicious circumstances.

7 Aquitaine
Held by the crown of England
since the marriage of Henry II
and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Philip VI seized the duchy in
1337, but after the treaty of
Brtigny (1360) it was enlarged
and restored to English
control. Between 1362 and
1371 the Black Prince ruled as The efgy of Edward the Black Prince
resident prince. in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent

Royal Dynasties 73
ROYAL FAMILIES Edward IIIs dynastic ambition

EMPIRE HOPES DASHED Spanish ships attack the Earl of Pembrokes eet off La Rochelle, 1372 one of the tragedies that helped ruin
Edward IIIs dream of empire. Pembroke, who had married Edward IIIs daughter Margaret in 1359, was captured and imprisoned until 1375

Countries and Burgundy. Even Thomas of Woodstock, compromising commitment of his sons. The idea of open
still an infant, was not forgotten, gaining rights to a series revolt within the dynasty remained anathema.
of lordships in the French county of Poitou. And yet the scheme was fundamentally awed.
How realistic was this great scheme? It rested on the Scotlands David II and Frances John II may have played
idea of a loose confederation of dependent states bound along with Edward, but there was no prospect that their
together by family and feudal ties. This was very different advisors or successors would countenance a Plantagenet
from the highly centralised model of empire imagined by takeover. Flanders proved the crucible of defeat. Faced
his grandfather Edward I and from the concept of nation- with the implacable opposition of the new French king
al sovereignty that was gradually being adopted by rulers Charles V (who wanted Margaret de Male for his brother
of England and France. Philip), Edward should have made a dignied retreat.
But pride got the better of him. Lionel of Antwerp

Y
et there were also plenty of examples in was withdrawn from Ireland and sent to northern Italy in
contemporary and later Europe of mul- 1368 to marry the daughter of the lord of Pavia. Tub-
tiple states managed by single dynasties. thumping Englishmen predicted that the prince might
Nor had Edward III failed to lay the go on to be king of the Romans and even Holy Roman
ground for these plans. John of Gaunts Emperor. In reality, this was no more than a bungled at-
marriage to the heiress to the duchy of tempt to put last-moment pressure on the pope to allow
Lancaster gave him the power base in the north of Edmund of Langley to have his Flemish bride, but eventu-
England essential to supporting a title to the kingdom of ally Charles V got his way and Margaret married Philip
Scotland. Prince Lionels regime in Ireland was carefully in 1369.
planned to continue into the next generation through the One error then bred more. Faced with a serious down-
AKG IMAGES

early betrothal of his only child, Philippa, to another pow- turn in his fortunes in Scotland and France, Edward III
erful landholder in the lordship, the future Earl of March. allowed his sons to believe that they might now nd royal
Unlike Henry II, Edward III could also rely on the un- titles for themselves in the war-torn kingdom of Castile.

74 Royal Dynasties
 In 137172 John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley were
allowed to marry Constanza and Isabella, the co-heiresses
to the former Castilian ruler Peter I. Thus began a genera-
tion of activity in the Iberian peninsula whose dubious
benets to England would cause controversy through-
out the later reign of Richard II.
Edward IIIs dream of empire was nally ruined
by a series of personal tragedies. In 1368, soon
after starting his new career in Italy, Prince Lionel
died at Alba. The Black Prince caught dysentery
while ghting in Castile in 1367 and was forced to
withdraw from campaigning in France after 1371,
returning to England to spend his last years as a semi-
invalid. In 1372, the Earl of Pembroke, who had
married the now-dead Princess Margaret, was taken
prisoner by the French at the battle of La Rochelle, and
died shortly after his release in 1375. FRIENDS IN THE NORTH
EdwardIII with DavidII of Scotland
in 1357. It was Edwards ultimate

I
n the early 1360s the king had entered an ill-ad- ambition to put one of his sons
on the Scottish throne
vised liaison with a London merchants wife,
Alice Perrers, who bore him at least three illegiti-
mate children. After Queen Philippas death in was the recently deceased Black Prince), and committed
1369 the aspiring royal mistress stirred up enmity itself to the impending challenge of a royal minority.
at court and in the country. By the time Edwards There was to be no further open disaffection within the
government faced its supreme political test, in the family until the adult Richard II ruined the Edwardian
Good Parliament of 1376 (so-called on account of the legacy by quarrelling with Thomas of Woodstock and
parliaments concerted efforts to clean up corruption with Gaunts son, Henry of Bolingbroke.
within the royal court), the king was conned to his sick- It was only in the 16th century that Tudor historians
bed; his heir the Black Prince, whom many continued to began to consider that the size of Edwards family had
see as Englands saviour, died while the assembly was been a liability to the crown, and that the intervening
in session. Wars of the Roses had been caused by the presence in
Edward himself died in June 1377. It was indeed a piti- England of a series of noble families all descended from
ful end to a glorious reign. And yet the memory of this the stock of Edward III.
great family endured. In 1377 the chancellor challenged Had Edward been able to respond to those criticisms,
parliament to consider if ever any Christian king or oth- he would no doubt have argued that they simply proved
er lord in the world had so noble and gracious a lady for the wisdom of a dynastic policy that had aimed to channel
his wife, or such children princes, dukes and others as princely ambition into foreign wars and imperial dreams.
our lord the king has had. Modern sensibilities may shy away from such aggressive
Under the strong direction of John of Gaunt, the re- models of state-building.
AKG IMAGES

maining members of the royal family drew together in But on the remarkable record of dynastic stability and
support of the new heir to the throne, the 10-year-old harmony that prevailed in England from 1330 to 1380, it
Richard of Bordeaux (Edwards grandson, whose father is surely hard to deny that Edward had a point.

Edward IIIs dream of empire was

nally ruined by a series of personal tragedies
Royal Dynasties 75
ROYAL FAMILIES George III and his relatives

GEORGE III
and the reinvention
of royal family life
When he came to the
throne in 1760, George
was determined that his
own family should be
very different from the
dysfunctional one in
which he grew up, says
JANICE HADLOW

BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

76 Royal Dynasties
 NEW MODEL FAMILY
George III and Queen
Charlotte, shown with their
six eldest children, had a
strong sense of moral duty
and thought a stable family
life was important

Royal Dynasties 77
ROYAL FAMILIES George III and his relatives

G
eorge III became George IIIs father, Frederick Lewis, also stressed the value of goodness
king of Great prince of Wales (170751). For years that a kings moral values are as
Britain in 1760. they quarrelled bitterly in private and important as cleverness and bravery.
His reign was in public about money, politics and Because, although the young George
famously marked family matters. The hatred that often had doubts about whether he
by a series of George and Caroline felt for their son was clever or strong enough to be
political and military struggles, Frederick is quite shocking. king, he always thought that he
including the loss of Britains 13 George III had a sense that his might be morally good enough. Bute
American colonies in the American grandfathers family life was somehow taught him that one of the ways to
Revolutionary War (177583). Less wrong and corrupt and that there was show that he was worthy of the role
well known is the story of family life something damaging about it both was by the way that he lived not just
in the kings household. George IIIs to the people caught within that world, what he did as a king, but also as a
concept of what a royal family should and to the idea of monarchy itself. father, a brother and a husband.
be evolved into a pattern of respect- The hunt for a wife for George
ability and duty quite unlike previous What sense do we get of George became urgent after he ascended to
models; this trait would be further as a young man? the throne on the death of his
developed by succeeding monarchs, George IIIs father Frederick had died grandfather in October, 1760. When
notably his granddaughter Queen in 1751 when George himself was just George and Charlotte married, there
Victoria. Matt Elton of BBC History 12 years old. The young George had a were fears about whether she was
Magazine spoke to Janice Hadlow terror of the destiny of kingship, and properly prepared for the role.
(author of a book about the private a deep sense that he might not be up Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
life of George III and his family) to to the job. He retreated into an (17441818), was just 17 years old,
trace the legacy of their predecessors, almost catatonic state, from which he chosen from a shopping list of
and their hopes, fears and ambitions was rescued by a charismatic mentor: suitable foreign princesses. The two
as a royal family. John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, a friend met just six hours before they were
of both Georges father and mother, married, in September 1761, and two
How did Georges predecessors who by 1756 had become an advisor weeks later celebrated their corona-
inform his outlook on life? to the prince. Bute was an intellec- tion in Westminster Abbey. But
To understand King George III tual, handsome man, with smoulder- George was condent, and it soon
(17381820) and his direct family, ing dark eyes and legs said to be the turned out that hed picked well.
it is important to know something best in London. He liked George as
about his predecessors in order to a young man, and I dont think that What was the relationship like
comprehend how he dened himself. many people had liked George between George and Charlotte?
He thought that he could make a before. He also provided the tenta- For a long time their marriage worked
clean break from his own familys tive, difdent young man with a new very well, at least supercially, as they
history, and had a conscious sense vision of what kingship meant in a were similar in character. Charlotte
that he wanted to live differently. modern world in which kings were no was dutiful, obedient, with a strong
His grandfather, George II longer called upon to lead in battle. sense of personal duty, and happy to
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

(16831760), had a very complex, Part of this vision was political, be guided by a more powerful man.
passionate relationship with his wife, with the idea that the kings job was She also shared Georges desire to live
Caroline he also had a well-known to be above party divisions and to say a quiet domestic life and to
series of mistresses. The couple were something different and larger about have a retreat from the
at huge odds with their eldest son, the importance of the state. But Bute hurly-burly of society,

John Stuart, the Earl

He had a sense that his grandfathers of Bute, had a huge
inuence on the
family life was somehow wrong, with young George

something damaging about it

78 Royal Dynasties
 THE TROUBLED HEIR
Prince George in 1754,
when he was just 16. His
father had died three
years earlier, and as
George grew up he was
deeply worried about the
prospect of kingship
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Royal Dynasties 79
ROYAL FAMILIES George III and his relatives

THE GROWING FAMILY

Charlotte with her two eldest sons
George and Frederick. She went on to
have 13 more children and became fed up
with her lifestyle and bored by its lack of
intellectual stimulation

which felt like it was theirs and not The other key thing about her is She wondered, in these letters,
owned by the rest of the world. that she became pregnant very whether she could sustain that life.
The most interesting thing about quickly, and did what, even in the In the end, of course, she did, because
Charlotte is how clever she was, with 18th century, was most required of a she was a very dutiful person. But the
a voracious intellect underneath a queen: provide an heir. Not just one, fact that she had a much darker,
compliant exterior. Both Charlotte either, but a positive richness of heirs. bleaker perception of her role for
and George never stopped reading, Within a year of marriage she many years is a new thing to under-
and the common picture of their produced the rst, the future George IV stand about her.
court as being stupid and dull is not (reigned 182030), then two more
accurate certainly not in the early sons: Frederick followed by William What impact did Georges moral
years, when they were both healthy. (William IV, reigned 183037). She ideals have on the running of
Theres no doubt that there was had 15 children in 23 years. the family?
another side to Charlotte, revealed in This went on to cause problems. It went brilliantly when the children
her letters to her brother: she was very The face she presented was that she were small. Theres no doubt George
lonely. From the start, when she had saw this as her duty, and was proud of loved small babies, and was a loving
rst arrived in Britain, George had her large, healthy family. But after father: there are many accounts of
made it clear that she was to keep more than two decades of having him carrying his naked little son
herself separate from a lot of the babies, she wrote to her brother that around, and of him playing on the
people at court, and was not to make she wished her long campaign could oor with his children losing what
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

close friends. He was worried about be over. She found life constraining: was seen as all of the dignity of a king.
people attering her, and about perpetually pregnant, isolated and So when the children were young
difcult alliances forming. Charlotte not free to do things that she wanted, it was a very positive picture, and a
understood these worries, but it left she also found the demands of great improvement on the situation
her a lonely, isolated gure. appearing in public exhausting. with Georges predecessors. It got far

80 Royal Dynasties
more complicated as the children got lines in this world between the added an extra dimension of horror
older, though. The idea that the private, intimate life and the one on for the family. The tension that
children might have desires or wishes public display. Its the one that the always existed between their public
that conicted with Georges vision of whole family, in the end, found it and private lives is perhaps most
the future created tensions. most difcult to deal with. apparent during his illness. By 1811
Boredom was also a factor, mostly George was declared unt to rule,
for the women: theres no doubt that At what point did Georges illness and his son ruled as prince regent
Charlotte was bored a lot of the time. rst manifest itself? from then onwards, becoming
She tried to bring clever women into The kings later years were blighted king in 1820 after George died at
the household with whom she could by recurrent mental illness; his eldest Windsor Castle.
form relationships of the mind. This son, later crowned as George IV,
was partly for her own intellectual ruled as prince regent for the nal You have written a book about
stimulation, but also because she decade of George IIIs life. The rst the family: what new impressions
wanted her daughters to see how serious illness came in 1788/89. did you get while researching it?
important it was in the court world, Symptoms ranged from stomach A lot of this story is about good
with all its requirements and poten- pains to severe mental disturbance, intentions. Everyone went into this
tial for dullness, to have an intellec- and historians have speculated widely project hoping for the best, and they
tual life for yourself. on the possible causes, with ideas all wanted to make something better
Its interesting, though, that none ranging from the hereditary illness for themselves. The picture we have
of those women stayed: they all, in porphyria to psychiatric illness. of the family is often sad: their lives
the end, found the pressure of life in George had previously been were quite dull, and they lived these
the spotlight, the endless etiquette remarkably healthy for an 18th-cen- very limited experiences. These were
and ceremony, just too dull and so tury man, which is why it came as genuinely thwarted lives, yet George
they left. But Charlotte couldnt such a shock to everyone. I think it and his family saw it as their duty to
leave, and thats one of the key themes was a shock from which, actually, try and make the best of them.
of their lives. neither he nor the family ever quite But theres also a sense of the
recovered. For reasons no one could liveliness of the family. George is
What was life like for the understand, the illness affected his often portrayed as a stolid, uninterest-
royal children? behaviour. George had previously ing character, but I think he was more
This was a period in which ideas of always been very controlled, and complicated and varied. He com-
childhood were changing rapidly, and regarded it as highly important that bined apparently contradictory
George and Charlotte tried to he mastered emotions that werent characteristics: he was generous but
introduce many of these ideas to their required of his public role. To lose unforgiving, thoughtful but obsti-
own household. The children were control, and to know that hed lost nate, loving but sometimes not
required to have their own agricul- control, was the great tragedy of the terribly sympathetic.
tural pursuits, for instance, and were early phases of all of his illnesses. Charlotte was a person of contra-
dressed very simply, in open-necked All of this would have been bad dictions, too. In later life she became
shirts and loose clothes. enough for anyone to deal with in the a little like the negative caricatures of
But right from the start there was 18th century, but the fact that his herself: strict, unloving, self-centred,
a contradiction between the idea of illness was regarded as shameful, and embittered and frustrated by the
them as free, natural children, and that it could not be concealed that it experiences of her husbands illnesses.
their formal status as princesses and was being debated, dissected and But before that there was another
princes. Thats another of the fault thought about in the public world Charlotte: clever, lively, intellectually
curious and very interested in the
world around her. These aspects of
These were genuinely thwarted lives, her personality got more and more
lost as time went on but how
yet George and his family saw it as their interesting it is to see that they were
duty to try and make the best of them there in the rst place.

Royal Dynasties 81
 WORLD
OF THE
WINDSORS
THE TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF A ROYAL DYNASTY
82 Royal Dynasties
 A DYNASTY
TRIUMPHANT
Elizabeth Windsor
better known as
Queen Elizabeth II
seen with members
of her family at
Buckingham Palace
during her birthday
parade in June 2015

+ How GEORGE V & QUEEN

MARY modernised the monarchy
+ The royal familys response
to THE SECOND WORLD WAR
+ A pictorial history of Britains
longest ever ruler, ELIZABETH II
+ The story of the FALL AND
GETTY IMAGES

RISE of the House of Windsor

Royal Dynasties 83
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Modernising the monarchy

ARCH PRAGMATISTS
King GeorgeV and his
wife, Queen Mary, pictured
during a visit to Dublin in
1911. The royal couple were
deeply conservative but
common sense taught
them they had to adapt to
the modern world

How George and

84
modernised the
Royal Dynasties
GETTY IMAGES

The British monarchys survival

into the 21st century owes an
enormous debt to the reign of

Mary George V and his wife Mary,

says DENYS BLAKEWAY

monarchy Royal Dynasties

85
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Modernising the monarchy

ROYAL FAMILY
The future King George V and Queen
Mary during a visit to Abergeldie, in
Aberdeenshire, c1906. With them are
Mary, Princess Royal (in front of her
father), Prince John (in Queen Marys
arms), Prince Henry (seated), and (from
left to right) Prince George, Prince
Edward and Prince Albert

GETTY IMAGES

According to his eldest son, David, King George fought

a private war with the 20th century
86 Royal Dynasties
W
hen Catherine Middleton to the values inculcated in him at Dartmouth Naval
and Prince William were College, Devon: stern discipline, unquestioning obedi-
married in Westminster ence of superiors and, above all, doing ones duty. He was
Abbey in 2011 the mayor of equally conventional in his personal habits.
London, Boris Johnson, re- George detested change, was rigidly punctual, and be-
marked of the royal wedding: sotted with correct dress, even reprimanding government
In a weird way it cheers ev- ministers if he considered them improperly turned out.
eryone up. Few could doubt that the wedding was both a His wife, Mary, while more cultured and intelligent,
tonic to the nation and a boost to the royal family. shared her husbands rigid conservatism and absolute be-
Polling at the time conrmed what was clear from the lief in duty; this was combined with an almost religious
thousands cheering on the wedding route and the street reverence for the throne. Out of loyalty to George, Mary
parties across the country that the monarchy, despite the buried her own lively mind and curious intellect under a
setbacks of recent years, was as strong as ever. For this the carapace of iron conformity.
institution owed much to the Queens grandfather King Such a pair of stick-in-the-muds would not see them-
George V, a man who gave the appearance of steely inex- selves and indeed were not considered as reformers,
ibility but in reality was a modernising reformer. but reformers they were and, paradoxically, the impulse to
William and Kates marriage ceremony echoed that of modernise the British monarchy came from the arch-
George Vs second son, Prince Albert, Duke of York, conservative king himself. With his passion for game
to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (mother of Elizabeth II) in 1923. shooting and stamp collecting, he may have seemed more
The future George VI and Queen Elizabeth were, like suited to being a squire in the countryside than a king-
William and Kate, married in April at a time of economic emperor but he was blessed with a gift that saved him and
gloom. Then, as now, the public nuptials were hugely pop- the monarchy from disaster: common sense. It was this
ular: a million people lined the streets to watch the wedding above all that enabled him to shore up the throne at a time
procession. In an impulsive gesture, Elizabeth placed her when, as Winston Churchill (who held various govern-
bridal posy of white owers on the grave of the Unknown ment posts throughout the reign of George V) said, other
Warrior of the First World War in Westminster Abbey. The empires were falling like rain.
Duchess of Cambridge did the same in 2011. What was

G
seen as a spontaneous tribute had become a royal tradition. eorge did not expect or want to be
The royal wedding of 1923 was a ground-breaking de- king. But in 1892, when he was 26,
parture from the old ways and symbolised the readiness of his elder brother, the reprobate Eddy,
the royal family, under the stern guidance of George V, to Duke of Clarence, died of com-
adapt to the modern world. At the command of the king, plications from a bout of inuenza.
Prince Albert was the rst son of a monarch to marry in George, the unassuming naval ofcer,
public at Westminster Abbey and it was the rst royal was thrust into direct line to the throne, after his grand-
wedding to be lmed, so that millions at home and across mother Victoria and father, the future Edward VII.
the empire could enjoy the spectacle. Most importantly, at Prince Eddy had been betrothed to Princess Mary
the kings behest, Alberts marriage was the rst union in (known to all as May), the shy and undemonstrative
modern times between a member of the royal family and a daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. With the
commoner, albeit an aristocratic one. No longer did the characteristic expediency of a dynasty bent on its own sur-
House of Windsor have to look to the narrow gene pool of vival, May whom Queen Victoria regarded as level-
German minor royals for fresh blood. headed and sound, despite her relatively lowly royal status
King George and his consort, Queen Mary, were the was encouraged to transfer her affections to George.
most unlikely modernisers. Both were ultra-conservative. After a decent interval of a year, George was told to do his
In their dress, manner and politics they shared a deep- duty, go into the garden with May and propose to her. He
seated mistrust of anything that might smack of radical- was accepted.
ism or, just as bad, fashion. The arranged marriage quickly developed into a bond
According to their eldest son, David (the future of real affection and mutual support. Though both found
Edward VIII), King George fought a private war with it almost impossible to openly express intimate feelings,
the 20th century. A former naval ofcer, George held fast they made their love clear in touching letters to each other.

Royal Dynasties 87
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Modernising the monarchy

MEETING HER PEOPLE

Queen Mary is given a tour of the
Lewis Merthyr colliery in south
Wales in June 1912. During the
trip, the queen dropped in at a
miners cottage for a cup of tea

The marriage was not an equal partnership. It could do what he was told by the prime minister of the day,
not have been, given Mays reverence for her husbands whether he approved or not.
status and the subordinate role of women at the time; nev- Even more than reforming Liberals, George feared so-
ertheless the couple became a team. After George acceded cialism. He believed wrongly as it turned out that the
to the throne in 1910 on the death his father, Edward VII, rise of the Labour party and the growth of trades unions
Queen Mary took on and actively developed the role of posed a direct threat to the survival of the monarchy.
female consort. The new king and queen could not have

Y
been more different from the late monarch and his long- et there was a contradiction at the heart
suffering wife, Alexandra. The court of Edward VII had of the kings character. His reactionary
been colourful, to say the least, with an aristocratic attitude side was set against the changes that
to affairs (acceptable if kept quiet), but George and Mary were enfranchising working people and
espoused the middle-class virtues of delity and family. women at the time. But his common
Britain at that time was changing. While the Liberal sense told him that he, and his wife, had
governments reforms caused the deeply conservative to adapt. As a rst step, in 1912 George and Mary, follow-
King George grave concern, both he and his wife accepted ing the advice of the kings advisor, Lord Esher, decided
that the monarchy had to be in step with a more demo- on a series of novel visits to industrial regions.
cratic age. It was a steep learning curve. George came to Royals had been visiting the poor for many years; what
the throne during suffragette agitation for womens votes, made George and Mary different was that they did so as a
union militancy, Irish demands for home rule and a con- team and that they engaged in a very public way with the
stitutional crisis over the power of the House of Lords. trials and tribulations of the industrial workers whom
Alongside the classic dictum of a monarchs right to be they visited. On a three-day trip to south Wales in June
consulted, to encourage, to warn, (dened by Walter 1912, they were photographed together visiting coalmine
GETTY IMAGES

Bagehot in The English Constitution, 1867), George pit-heads. Queen Mary insisted on visiting an ordinary
quickly learnt under the tutelage of his rst premier, the miners cottage where she perched on a kitchen stool and
Liberal Herbert Asquith, that the monarchs duty was to drank a cup of tea. Keir Hardie (the republican founder

88 Royal Dynasties
 of Labour) will not have liked it! she re- The same year King George boldly
marked, only half in jest, afterwards. moved to anglicise his name and remove
A month later Mary visited the scene the Teutonic taint that was damaging the
of a mining disaster in Yorkshire and was royal family at a time of rabid anti-Ger-
seen to have tears streaming down her man feeling. HG Wells had sneered that
cheeks as she spoke to the bereaved a sign the kings court was alien and uninspiring;
of a heart beating under the outwardly cold the king, who considered himself British to
mask of royal rectitude. Such acts, it was the backbone, responded robustly: I may be
hoped, would serve to make the monarchy George Vs private secretary, uninspiring, but Ill be damned if I am alien.
Lord Stamfordham, who
appear in tune with a more democratic society. suggested the new dynastic
He ordered Lord Stamfordham to nd a dy-
Royal visits, however, werent enough to name of Windsor nastic name more suitable than the distinctly
quell the concerns of the king and his advisers alien Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which some gene-
that the institution of monarchy was in peril. The First alogists believed to be his surname. The private secretary,
World War exacerbated these fears. The conict brought after much consideration, came up with Windsor. This
about the downfall of many crowned heads in Europe; it was a masterstroke epitomising, in its association with the
led to revolution in Russia; and it exposed the inescapable ancient castle, solid unchanging virtues, and with its link
fact that the British royal family was almost 100 per cent to a nourishing brown Windsor soup popular at the
German by descent. There were murmurings in the press time, a certain hearty dullness.
and elsewhere that the monarchy was out of touch and

A
out of tune with the feelings of the country. In 1917, three t the same time as changing his name,
years into the war, there was a sense of crisis at court. George created the Order of the
In secret the king and his private secretary, Lord British Empire. The new honour
Stamfordham, consulted leading opinion formers of the proved immensely popular, allowing
time as to how they might modernise and adapt. for the rst time ordinary people
Stamfordham opened a le, Unrest in the Country (now to be recognised for their good works.
held in the Royal Archives), in which he collected advice Such commitments to improving the public image
on how the monarchy might better engage with the peo- of the royal family were underlined by the appointment
ple at a time of change. The king himself was at the fore- of Buckingham Palaces rst full-time press secretary,
front of these moves. in 1918.
When in March 1917 Georges rst cousin the The end of the First World War in November that year
Russian tsar Nicholas II abdicated, the British govern- brought further change. The franchise was extended to
ment agreed to requests for his asylum. At rst, George women and, with working peoples growing sense of enti-
went along with this. But he soon realised that it would be tlement after the sacrices of the war, a Labour govern-
disastrous for the British royal family to be seen publicly ment became inevitable. The king, who associated the
to be emphasising its links with one of Europes more an- Labour party with republicanism, was fearful, not least as
tiquated and autocratic imperial dynasties. At the kings to whether the neophyte statesmen could afford proper
own initiative and against the advice of his ministers, the court dress. Jeeves-like, Lord Stamfordham had the an-
invitation was rescinded. Nicholas and his family suffered swer: Messrs Moss Bros, Your Majesty, which is I believe
an awful death at the hands of the Bolsheviks one year a well known and dependable rm.
PUBLIC DOMAIN

later. Although George and Mary were horried by the More importantly, having declared his hostility to so-
assassinations, they never doubted the wisdom of the de- cialism, a Labour government would test King Georges
cision to keep their cousin out. duty of impartiality to the limit. In the event, when the

The new name Windsor brought to the royal family

a certain hearty dullness

Royal Dynasties 89
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Modernising the monarchy

TIMELINE

Ten key moments in George Vs reign

Coronation of King George 22 June 1911 The king and queen begin a series of
and Queen Mary (shown visits to industrial regions to examine
below) after the death of the living conditions of working people
EdwardVII the for themselves. It is the beginning of a
previous year. subtle programme of modernisation.
The kings new June 1912
reign begins amid Outbreak of the First World War. King
a constitu- George and Queen Mary appear on the
tional crisis. balcony of Buckingham Palace to
rapturous crowds. In private they are
incredulous and fearful.
4 August 1914

George implements a series of

modernising reforms. Members of the 15 March 1917
royal family can marry British common-
ers; the honours system is widened with
the OBE (Order of the British empire);
the surname Windsor is adopted.
June 1917

The Russian tsar Nicholas II

(above, with his family) abdicates.
George refuses him exile in Britain,
11 November 1918 fearful his presence will embarrass
the royal family.

The end of the First World War.

Victory cements George and Marys
popularity. Behind the scenes, reforms
continue with the appointment of the
rst royal press secretary.
22 January 1924
The rst Labour government.
Despite the kings misgivings, he
forms a close and lasting bond with
the Labour prime minister, Ramsay
MacDonald (pictured).

After direct intervention by King George,

Ramsay MacDonald forms a National
government. The Labour party is split
with few supporting the new coalition.
GETTY IMAGES / ALAMY / PA IMAGES

23 August 1931

The rst royal Christmas message is 25 December 1932 Only months after celebrating his
broadcast. The kings address, written
silver jubilee, King George dies,
by the poet Rudyard Kipling, is heard
aged 70. Millions line the streets to
across the British empire.
pay their respects (above) as his
cofn is taken for burial at Windsor.
20 January 1936

90 Royal Dynasties
 RAPTUROUS RESPONSE
Thousands of people line the route during
a procession through London in 1935 to
rst Labour government was elected in 1924, fears on celebrate the silver jubilee of George V
and Queen Mary
both sides were allayed. The socialist politicians not only
dressed properly but treated their monarch with, if any-
thing, deeper respect than did the more familiar Liberal
and Conservative statesmen of the time. The king
responded in kind and formed a bond with the Labour
leader, Ramsay MacDonald, which developed into a deep
friendship. MacDonald, the illegitimate son of a farm
labourer and a servant girl, turned out to share many of
the deep-seated conservative values of his sovereign.

I
n 1931, when the country faced nancial turmoil
over a budget decit which threatened to under-
mine the banking system, King George played a
central role in the crisis. MacDonalds cabinet was
split over the way to handle the budget crisis,
refusing to implement cuts in unemployment
benets. The king twice refused his prime ministers res-
ignation and persuaded MacDonald to remain in charge
of a coalition National Government of Conservatives and
Liberals, with only a token rump of Labour members.
The Labour party never forgave their leader for his be-
trayal, but the kings intervention was widely regarded as
having steadied the ship of state with a crucial balancing beamed directly into the nations homes with an intimacy
act between right and left. As one historian put it, he was previously unthinkable.
possessed with a kind of sublime common sense. He Only a few months after the jubilee celebrations, on 20
knew what to do and he did it. January 1936, King George died at Sandringham, the
Four years later, on 6 May 1935, the king and queen royal familys country retreat in Norfolk. He was 70 years
drove to Londons St Pauls Cathedral to celebrate their old. His death, at a time of international uncertainty and
silver jubilee. George described the crowds as the greatest growing threat of war, came as a terrible shock to the na-
number of people in the streets I have ever seen in my life. tion. Georges reign, epitomised by unchanging routine
While he would have been personally appalled at the idea and solid virtue, harked back to the certainties of the
of seeking popularity, he had, under the guidance of his Victorian age. His, and his wifes, achievement had been
private secretaries, adapted the monarchy to the modern to give the appearance of absolute solidity while exibly
age while giving the appearance of rock-like security. In responding to changing circumstances. Queen Mary,
the process he had become deeply loved, to his great sur- who had shared his commitment to duty and mirrored his
prise: I did not realise they felt like this, he said, aston- rigid rectitude, lived on to see her granddaughter Elizabeth
ished and moved by the rapturous reception. accede to the throne, dying in 1953.
The kings popularity was increased by the most suc- In recognition of King Georges reign, millions from all
GETTY IMAGES

cessful innovation in his later life: the radio speech from backgrounds lined the streets at his funeral to pay their
the monarch, given at Christmas, which he rst broadcast respects to a simple man whose very ordinariness and
in 1932. His gravelly voice, as if pickled in whisky, was adaptability had made him father of the nation.

He had become deeply loved, to his great surprise:

I did not realise they felt like this, he said

Royal Dynasties 91
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The royals at war

The
Windsors
AT WAR
STEPHEN BATES describes how the response of
GETTY IMAGES / ALAMY

George VI, his wife Elizabeth and their two young daughters
during the battle against Nazi Germany helped cement the
royal familys place in the British peoples affections

92 Royal Dynasties
 LEADING BY EXAMPLE
The king and queen inspect
the damage to a cinema in
Baker Street. During the war,
they became popular by stating
their determination to remain in
London and take their chances
along with everyone else

FACING PAGE
George VI is shown on the
War Medal 19391945,
instituted in 1945 for
military personnel who
served in the war

Royal Dynasties 93
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The royals at war

A
t about 11am on 13 September course the Princesses Elizabeth (the current Queen, born
1940, a week after the start of in 1926) and Margaret (1930).
the London Blitz, a German This was the royal familys chief, symbolic, contribu-
bomber ducked under the tion to the war effort. Although the king, who had seen
clouds, ew deliberately low service at a junior level as a naval ofcer at the battle of
across the capital and dropped Jutland in the First World War, met prime minister
ve high explosive bombs on Winston Churchill for lunch every Tuesday, he had no
Buckingham Palace. George VI military role in the conict, beyond that of raising public
and his wife, Elizabeth, were just taking tea. At the precise morale. And although both men came to respect each
moment that they heard what she described as the un- other, they were not initially natural soulmates. Churchill
mistakable whirr-whirr of the plane, the queen was bat- had been a supporter of Edward VIII during the abdica-
tling to take an eyelash out of his eye and they rushed out tion, while George had publicly supported former prime
into the corridor to avoid the blast. Two bombs fell minister Neville Chamberlains peace with honour
in the palaces inner quadrangle a few yards from where Munich appeasement of Hitler, which proved so short-
the couple had been sitting, a third destroyed the chapel lived. When Chamberlain resigned in 1940 George
and the remainder caused deep craters at the front of would have preferred Lord Halifax to become prime min-
the building. ister instead of Churchill.
It was not the rst, nor the last, time that the palace

I
was hit during the Second World War there were two f the Nazi high command thought the attack on
other attacks that week, one of which destroyed the swim- the palace would sow defeatism and despair in
ming pool, and altogether nine direct hits in ve years Britain, they were gravely mistaken. The news-
but that was the moment that the royals themselves came reels and newspapers of the time made no attempt
closest to injury. It was perhaps also the point at which the to minimise or disguise the damage. Indeed, rec-
monarchy nally recovered the public esteem that it had ognising its reverse propaganda potential, the
lost at the time of the abdication crisis less than four years Ministry of Information gave 40 reporters access to the
earlier (when Edward VIII felt compelled to give up the site. Path News showed workmen repairing the craters,
throne because of his relationship with Wallis Simpson). the royal couple were pictured inspecting the wreckage,
They could now be seen to be sharing at least some of the while the prime minister and the associated commentar-
privations of their bombed-out subjects. In the queens fa- ies and editorials all stressed the dastardliness of the at-
mous words: I am glad we have been bombed. It makes tack on our beloved sovereign.
me feel I can look the East End in the face. May this planned assassination recoil a hundred-fold
The bombing also gave George VI and Elizabeth a on the beast of Berlin, blared the newsreel. Reginald
chance to demonstrate the dutifulness and stoicism that Simpson, editor of the Sunday Graphic, wrote: When
the kings elder brother had so conspicuously lacked when this war is over the common danger which King George
he gave up the throne. Unlike Edward VIII and Queen Elizabeth have shared with their
they had stayed at their posts, not eeing to By targeting Buckingham people will be a cherished memory and an in-
Canada or seeking sanctuary as some other Palace the Germans handed spiration through the years.
the royals a propaganda
monarchs had (although King Leopold III coup, boosting morale
The concept of sharing of being all in it
of the Belgians, who chose to re- together was heavily emphasised in
main in Brussels after the Nazi propaganda throughout the war and
occupation, was unpopular for has played well in the royal familys fa-
doing so and was later forced vour ever since: the present Queen
to abdicate). could hardly have been so prominently
As the queen also said: The and sympathetically associated with
children will not leave unless I do. the commemoration of wartime anni-
I shall not leave unless their father versaries had that not been the case,
does, and the king will not leave even though her own personal military
the country in any circumstances, involvement was necessarily slight.
ALAMY

whatever. The children were of It was diligently reported that the

94 Royal Dynasties
 SHOWING SOLIDARITY
George VI and Queen Elizabeth,
GETTY IMAGES

who were themselves bombed, talk

to the residents of a damaged area
of London in September 1940

The queen famously said I am glad we have been

bombed I can look the East End in the face

Royal Dynasties 95
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The royals at war

HELPING TO RAISE MORALE

George VI and Elizabeth aimed to raise
morale, sympathising with bombed
out civilians and visiting the armed
forces, such as these American
troops stationed in England

royal family had been issued with ration books and cloth- their visits were really welcomed may be questioned. At
ing coupons like everyone else, though not that the queen the time Mass Observation, a project set up in 1937 to
received 1,277 coupons a year in excess of the standard survey social attitudes and opinions, recorded some grum-
66. The king was pictured gazing soulfully at the pigs be- bling and sullenness because of unnecessary fuss but
ing fattened for the table at Windsor, just like his subjects there was clearly also an appreciation that the royal visits
who clubbed together to rear pigs of their own; the showed the monarchys concern for their people and dem-
Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were depicted knitting onstrated that they were still with them.
for the troops; the palace rooms were lit by single light The queen wrote: It does affect me, seeing this terrible
bulbs and rings were drawn around the royal tubs to limit and senseless destruction I think that really I mind it
the depth of baths to ve inches like everyone else. The much more than being bombed myself. The people are
family, parents with two young daughters, were often marvellous, and full of ght. One could not imagine that
photographed domestically, as a group, reading or chat- life could become so terrible. We must win in the end.
ting together in their drawing room or cycling in the Her ostentatious charm, what playwright Noel Coward
countryside. It was not a false picture, though it was a described as an exhibition of unqualied niceness, made
massaged one: they could at least retreat away from the up for her husbands stiff nervousness and periodic bouts
capital for the night, to Windsor Castle, when the Blitz in of bad temper and loss of nerve.
London got too heavy. These quirks tended to be forgiven as the king was so
The king and queen were regularly shown among their obviously, painfully, striving to do his duty. His stammer
people, especially when they toured bombed sites, or was widely known about it could scarcely be hidden
when visiting troops and gun installations. George VI was and previously, at the time of his accession, it had been
invariably in uniform when seen on ofcial business he seen in some quarters as a sign of his mental and physical
was a stickler for military correctness and would fre- fragility. It need cause no sort of embarrassment,
CORBIS

quently be shown presenting medals. How far some of declared Archbishop Cosmo Lang unnecessarily in a

George VI was in uniform when on ofcial business

and would be shown presenting medals
96 Royal Dynasties
 Four royal brothers at war
While George VIs reputation soared, his brothers faced danger or dishonour

KING GEORGE VI (18951952) EDWARD, Duke of Windsor (18941972)

George VI (christened Albert) was the second son of George Vs heir abdicated as Edward VIII in 1936 to
George V. He trained at Osborne Naval College and marry Wallis Simpson. He trained at Osborne Naval
saw action in the First World War at Jutland. In 1918 College, serving with the Grenadier Guards in the
he transferred to the Royal Air Force, the rst royal First World War. He was living in France in 1939, but
to qualify as a pilot. In the Second World War he ed to Portugal where the Nazis unsuccessfully
became a gurehead, visiting factories, hospitals attempted to abduct him. Two years before he had
and bombed-out areas and making morale-boosting met Hitler (above) and was suspected of Nazi
visits to British forces abroad, including at Norman- sympathies, but denied it. In 1940 he was appointed
dy in France after D-Day in 1944 (seen above with governor of the Bahamas a third-class colony, he
General later Field Marshal Montgomery). believed to keep him out of trouble.

PRINCE GEORGE, Duke of Kent (190242)

The fourth son of George V became the rst English
royal to die on active service since King Richard III
fell at the battle of Bosworth in 1485. George had
been in the navy and worked as a civil servant
(another royal rst). He had a
louche reputation, with talk of
affairs with both men and
women and drug taking. An
air commodore in the RAF,
he was killed when a plane
taking him to inspect air
bases in Iceland crashed
into a hillside in Caithness
in Scotland.
REX FEATURES / GETTY IMAGES / ALAMY

PRINCE HENRY, Duke of Gloucester (190074)

George Vs third son (above, on the right) was a The Duke of Kent, George VIs
career soldier, though he had retired from the 10th youngest brother, was
Hussars in 1937. He was appointed chief liaison killed while on active
ofcer to the British Expeditionary Force in France service in 1942
and was wounded during the retreat to Dunkirk. He
then served as second in command of 20th Ar-
moured Brigade. He was not risked in combat after
the Duke of Kent was killed (see right).

Royal Dynasties
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The royals at war

DOING THEIR BIT

In 1940, the two princesses
made their rst radio broadcast,
aimed at cheering up the British
children who had been
evacuated to North America

GETTY IMAGES / IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

ABDICATED The activities of George VI and his family contrasted ON ACTIVE SERVICE Princess Elizabeth insisted on joining an
favourably with the Duke of Windsor (above), whose abdication and auxiliary service like the rest of the nations young women, despite
easy war in the Bahamas were seen as a dereliction of duty her fathers misgivings, and was seen to be helping the war effort

98 Royal Dynasties
broadcast. But now it became a symbol of integrity and tion nor is it likely to be considered for many years to
of decent ordinariness. come. Now, times had changed and the broadcast,
George was indeed very different from his ashy broth- ostensibly to British children evacuated to North America,
er. Edward VIII, the playboy king, a man who, his friend was heard across the world. The evocative words: We
Walter Monckton said, believed that God had dealt him know from experience what it means to be away from
trumps all the time, had precipitously fallen from public those we love most of all come on Margaret Good
favour within days of abdicating in December 1936 and night and good luck to you all were sentimental, but
was perceived to be having a cushy war as governor of the effective as an example of British stoicism.
Bahamas. He had given up the throne rather than Wallis As both princesses grew up, their progress was closely
Simpson, the American divorcee he loved a dereliction observed by the public in wartime: from performing in
of duty and birthright in the eyes of the public, whose let- annual Windsor Castle plays to, in Elizabeths case,
ters to Stanley Baldwins government (preserved in gov- launching HMS Vanguard, the largest battleship ever
ernment archives) zz with indignation and contempt built in Britain, in 1944. By the following year, the
leaving his brother to pick up the pieces. 19-year-old princess had been allowed, not without some
George VI may not have been an intellectual or origi- misgivings by her father, to join the Auxiliary Territorial
nal in thought or outlook, but he was obviously sincere Service, the ATS, where she went on a six-week training
and dedicated and that was precisely what was required course in driving and vehicle maintenance at the major
from a public gurehead. His making was, of course, the garrison of Aldershot.
war, noted Martin Charteris, who would later be a pri- Young women had been conscripted in 1941, with the
vate secretary to Queen Elizabeth II. choice of working in industry or joining one of the auxil-
iary services the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS, the

A
ppearances by the royal family in cin- womens branch of the British Army), the Womens
ema newsreels the only form of pic- Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) or the Womens Royal Naval
torial broadcasting operating during Service (WRNS), with the aim of freeing up men from
the war, as the nascent BBC television these services for frontline duties.
service closed down for the duration Elizabeths attendance was somewhat circumscribed
rose dramatically. Mass Observation she was driven home to Windsor Castle every night and
estimated that stories featuring members of the royal fam- was taken to the ofcers mess for meals but it was at
ily rose from them being covered in 23 per cent of bulle- least an opportunity to test herself against less privileged
tins to 80 per cent at the height of the crisis, while sponta- contemporaries for the rst time in her life. And, more
neous clapping when they came on screen trebled. One importantly, the pictures of her ddling with an engine
man told researchers after watching the palace bombing and the newsreel of her driving a truck showed her doing
sequence: Now the king is clapped not so much as a man her bit. She qualied just as the war ended.
but as a symbol of the country. The royal family did not escape unscathed from the
At the heart of these public appearances were the young war. George VI was exhausted and worn down by the un-
princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, who made their rst relenting tension and emotional strain created by the con-
radio broadcast in October 1940, a month after the bomb- ict, in a role that as second son he had never anticipated
ing of Buckingham Palace. Two years earlier royal of- or been trained for. By the wars end however he was, in
cials had contemptuously rejected a request from Helen Churchills words: more beloved by all classes and condi-
Reid, the owner of the New York Herald Tribune, for the tions than any of the princes of the past. The royal familys
princesses to make a radio broadcast to the US to open wartime example and reputation have stood it in good
national childrens week there is of course no ques- stead now for three-quarters of a century.

He was sincere and dedicated and that was precisely

what was required from a gurehead
Royal Dynasties 99
WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The Queen in pictures

Elizabeth II
A life in
pictures
Ever since Elizabeth IIs coronation in 1953, both her public role
and her personal life have been in the spotlight. Turn the page
for the pictorial story of Britains longest reigning monarch,
through six eventful decades

100 Royal Dynasties

 THE CORONATION, 1953
Elizabeth was crowned in
V&A IMAGES

Westminster Abbey on
2 June 1953. The corona-
tion ceremony has largely
remained the same for a
thousand years, but for
Elizabeth there was one
crucial difference: broad-
cast on radio and TV, it was
witnessed by millions of
people around the world

Royal Dynasties 101

WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The Queen in pictures

A BABY IS BORN, 1926 Elizabeth, shown in THE YOUNG PRINCESS, 1937 George VI and family appear on the balcony at
the late 1920s, was born on 21 April 1926. There Buckingham Palace after his coronation he succeeded to the throne following the
was no expectation that the young child would abdication of his older brother Edward VIII. Now that the 11-year-old Princess
one day become a princess and a queen Elizabeth seen waving was the next royal heir, her life was to change dramatically

GETTY IMAGES

WARTIME DUTIES, 1942 In the Second World War, Princess Elizabeth played an important symbolic role. On her 16th birthday, in 1942,
she inspected the Grenadier Guards at a special parade at Windsor Castle. As their new colonel she wore the regimental badge on her hat.
A reporter at the time described it as the rst ofcial occasion in the life of Englands future queen

102 Royal Dynasties

GETTY IMAGES

COMING OF AGE, 1947 Elizabeth seen on a tour to South Africa in 1947. In her 21st birthday radio broadcast, she said: I welcome the
opportunity to speak to all the peoples of the British Commonwealth and empire my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted
to your service. She was as good as her word: the Commonwealth has 53 members, and she has made hundreds of visits to member nations

Royal Dynasties 103

WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The Queen in pictures

POSTWAR WEDDING, 1947 On 20 November 1947, the princess YOUNG MOTHER, 1951 At their home at Clarence House in
married Prince Philip. It was a modest affair, with rationing still in London, the royal couple show off their young family: Charles, born
place after the war. Fifty years on, the Queen would say of her in 1948 and sister, Anne, born two years later. Elizabeth now had to
husband: He has been my strength and stay all these years juggle her personal life with the demands of her public duties

GETTY IMAGES / REUTERS

RELAXING ON VACATION, 1972 The Queen and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, on the familys annual summer break at
Balmoral Castle, with the young princes Andrew (behind) and Edward, and Princess Anne and Prince Charles. With the birth
of Andrew in 1960, the Queen had become the rst reigning sovereign to have a child since Queen Victoria in 1857

104 Royal Dynasties

 ROYAL WALKABOUT, 1977 In Hobart, Tasmania during her silver jubilee tour of Australia, the Queen went on a walkabout designed to
meet as many people as possible, not simply dignitaries. Her rst Commonwealth tour had been in 1953, when she visited Canada, Bermuda,
Jamaica, Panama, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, the Cocos Islands, Ceylon, Aden, Uganda, Libya and Gibraltar, covering 43,618 miles
GETTY IMAGES / PA

MEETING MR PRESIDENT, 1982 There have been 12 US presidents during the Queens reign, starting with Harry S Truman (elected in
1945). Here the Queen and President Ronald Reagan indulge a shared interest in riding during his state visit, on horses given to the Queen
by the Canadian mounted police. She has a keen interest in breeding thoroughbred horses and often visits race meetings to watch them run

Royal Dynasties 105

WORLD OF THE WINDSORS The Queen in pictures

DEATH OF DIANA, 1997 Diana Spencer married Prince Charles in 1981. They separated in 1992 and Diana died after a car crash in Paris
on 31 August 1997. The Queen was criticised for not showing grief, nally tapping into the public mood by viewing the oral tributes on the eve
of the funeral. She said: It is not easy to express a sense of loss what I say to you now I say from my heart I admired and respected her

GETTY IMAGES / REUTERS / REX FEATURES

DIAMOND JUBILEE, 2012 The Queen and Prince Philip smile GREAT GRANDMOTHER, 2015 The Queen and Prince Philip
gamely through the rain during a pageant of 1,000 boats along the with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Catherine)
river Thames on 3 June to mark the Queens diamond jubilee. Around at the christening of their daughter Charlotte. She and her brother
a million people braved the cold to watch, lining the river banks George, above, are two of the Queens ve great-grandchildren

106 Royal Dynasties

GETTY IMAGES

LONG TO REIGN OVER US, 2015 Queen Victoria famously reigned for 63 years and seven months (18371901), but on 9 September,
2015, Elizabeth II surpassed that record. She appeared in public wearing a diamond-studded bow brooch originally owned by Victoria,
saying of her achievement: It is not one to which I have ever aspired. In April 2016 she will celebrate her 90th birthday

Royal Dynasties 107

WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Fall and rise

RIDING HIGH Elizabeth II

and family members shown
greeting the crowds
gathered to celebrate her
60 years on the throne
during the 2012 diamond
jubilee celebrations

FACING PAGE
Windsor Castle takes pride
of place on the heraldic
badge of the House of
Windsor, as approved by
George VI in 1938

108 Royal Dynasties

 THE FALL AND
RISE OF THE
WINDSORS

Royal events today are celebrated with enthusiasm in the UK, a

turnaround from the 1990s when the monarchy was beset by
tragedy and its future was questioned. SARAH GRISTWOOD
GETTY IMAGES

charts the changing fortunes of the Windsors in recent years

Royal Dynasties 109

WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Fall and rise

WORLDS APART
REALITY TELEVISION Charles and Diana, seen on their last
A camera lms the royals at lunch for ofcial trip together in South Korea in
a TV documentary in 1969, part of an November 1992, shortly before their
attempt to reinvent the monarchy separation was announced

f all the things that how quickly that began to die away. George Vs 1917 declaration that the

O
can be said about By the end of the 1960s, polls House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Queen Elizabeth II, suggested the monarchy was an would henceforth be known by the
perhaps the most out-of-touch anachronism. The royals name of Windsor, to the familys
surprising is this reacted surprisingly readily (Prince mid-century image as an ideal of
that the small, Philip, the moderniser, said that they middle-class morality.
conservative were ghting an election every day) But by the late 20th century, that
woman with her air of doughty and the result was a 1969 y-on-the- very ideal had begun to look irrel-
resolution and her dowdy handbags, wall television documentary lm evant. The royal family was being
has presided over a new era of called Royal Family. assessed in the cold, hard terms of
British monarchy. Opinion was divided about, to
Elizabeths reign has seen the paraphrase the 19th-century British
House of Windsor fall to a point journalist Walter Bagehot, letting in By the late 20th
where many questioned whether it daylight upon magic. But in fact
could survive into the next century. the royals had already consciously century, the royal
But then it saw the royal family rise reinvented themselves several times
again, coasting into the future on a in recent history, from Prince Alberts family was being
whole new wave of popularity.
In the postwar climate of 1952,
presentation of Queen Victorias as
a family monarchy, to the early
assessed in the cold,
Queen Elizabeth came to the throne 20th-century reconstruction of hard terms of
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on a cloud of adulation, amid talk of a The Mall, the road leading to

new Elizabethan era. But the rst sur- Buckingham Palace, as an arena for value for money
prise in charting this journey is just huge public ceremony. And from

110 Royal Dynasties

 FIRE AT WINDSOR CASTLE In November 1992 a re at the castle was a low point for
the Queen. The question of who should pay for repairs which took ve years and cost
37m raised serious issues about the funding of the monarchy

value for money. The marriages of the divorced from reality. A poll in early the Yorks would separate; in April
Queens children were supposed to 1990 suggested nearly half the Princess Anne divorced Captain
reignite the spark and indeed, when population supporting the idea of an Mark Phillips; in June, Andrew
Charles, Prince of Wales (heir to the eventual abdication. By now the Morton published the biography
throne), and Lady Diana Spencer War of the Waleses the public Diana: Her True Story.
announced their engagement on breakdown of the heir to the thrones In August came the embarrassing
24 February 1981 then were marriage was well under way. Squidgygate tapes recorded phone
married in July it was seen (in conversations between Diana and a
Dianas words) as a fairytale. hen came 1992: what close friend James Gilbey; in

T
When Prince William was born the Queen called her December Buckingham Palace
less than a year later, Diana said later annus horribilis (her announced that with regret, the
that she had felt the whole country horrible year and Prince and Princess of Wales have
was in labour with me. But her arguably the fact that decided to separate.
burgeoning celebrity status would she used Latin dis- The left-wing member of parlia-
prove a double-edged sword when her played the problem all ment Dennis Skinner declared:
interests started to diverge from those too clearly). January saw embarrass- The royal family has just pressed
of the wider royal family. ing photographs of the Duchess of the self-destruct button. A poll
As the 1980s turned to the 1990s, York (married to Prince Andrew, showed that three out of four
courtiers spoke of QVS Queen Duke of York, since 1986) with Steve Britons believed the royal family
Victoria Syndrome whereby a Wyatt, a Texas oilman; February saw was crumbling.
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population could tire of an ageing Diana photographed ostentatiously Not the least telling event of that
monarch and an apparently parasitic alone in front of the Taj Mahal in year was the November re that
extended royal family seemingly India. In March it was announced seriously damaged Windsor Castle

Royal Dynasties 111

WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Fall and rise

STIFF UPPER LIP The Queens restraint was unpopular during ROYAL STALWART Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, on her 100th
the period of public mourning after the death of Diana in 1997. The birthday in 2000, one of the anniversaries that was celebrated
Daily Express was not alone in demanding some display of grief across the nation, helping to boost the popularity of the royals

and which saw a sullen nation in the many seemed to agree. The Waless Balmoral in Scotland, in London the
grip of recession reject Prime Minister divorce was nalised the following extraordinary outpouring of public
John Majors declaration that they August. grief was fueled by a ood of hostile
would pay for the repairs. headlines Show us you care,
The Queen agreed to pay income leading academic begged the Daily Express newspaper.

A
tax; that fewer members of the royal declared that The Queens lifelong policy of a
family would receive public funding; Something has restrained, hands-off style of queen-
and that some of the palaces should died the enchant- ship seemed now to be serving her
open to the public. Yet within weeks ment of the British very badly.
came Camillagate publication of people for the But the familys popularity began
an all too private conversation monarchy. But in to climb again almost from the
between Charles and his mistress its history of more than a thousand moment of its return to London
Camilla Parker Bowles. years the crown has seen a lot of deaths, seen inspecting the mounds of
In June 1994 Prince Charles, in a and a lot of phoenixes rise from the owers left by the public and break-
televised interview, admitted indel- ames. The king is dead, long live the ing with tradition and protocol to
ity. An ever more gravely wounded king, represents not just the tradition, have a ag own at half mast over
monarchy was described by The but the mutability of the monarchy. Buckingham Palace. The Queen
Economist magazine as an idea whose If a divorced Princess of Wales was broadcasted her regret as a grand-
time has passed. Dianas subsequent a loose cannon, then her shocking mother and spontaneously bowed
interview on Panorama in November death on 31 August 1997 looked like her head as Dianas cofn passed by.
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the following year saw her assert that being innitely more damaging. As In the longer run, Dianas death
Charles was temperamentally the royal family remained incommu- ended the divisive taking of sides and
unsuitable for the top job and nicado at their family retreat of allowed the royal family to appear

112 Royal Dynasties

 POMP AND CEREMONY A triumphant image of
the Queen and her family, on the occasion of
Williams marriage to Catherine in 2011. It depicts a
condent monarchy at the height of its popularity

once more as a united entity. saw the deaths of Princess Margaret point of the Queen, who had been
The public had vented their dissatis- and then Elizabeth the Queen doing her job for 50 years, said her
faction and the royals had taken Mother. The Queen invited Camilla former press secretary Charles Anson
it meekly. They promised to do Parker Bowles along to that years after the golden jubilee. She is rmly
better, effectively. So, have they? golden jubilee celebrations; the Prince established as national treasure
Yes, essentially. of Wales married his long-time love number one and many are even
It has helped that there have been in 2005, in a quiet ceremony. Though learning to view the sometimes-con-
a huge number of events in the years she took the lesser title of Duchess of troversial Prince Philip differently.
since Dianas death (and the palace, Cornwall, there was, as would once The 2006 lm The Queen was
with newly sharpened sensibilities, have seemed unthinkable, no public more blessing than curse. The public
has taken full advantage). Autumn outburst of hostility. enjoyed tabloid newspaper disclosures
1997 saw the Queen and Prince The royals seem set on an upward that she stores her breakfast cereal in
Philips golden wedding anniversary; path. The Queens longevity, once a humble Tupperware container as
1999 saw endorsement for retaining seen as a problem, has proved her much as her readiness to be lmed
the monarchy in the Australian strength. Suddenly people got the with Daniel Craig as James Bond
republican referendum; the millen-
nium saw a milestone passed and
August 2000 was the Queen
Mothers 100th birthday.
The public enjoyed tabloid newspaper
Events can be either the excuse for disclosures that the Queen stores her breakfast
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colourful ceremony, or a trigger for

sympathy. The year 2002 just a cereal in a humble Tupperware container
decade after the annus horribilis

Royal Dynasties 113

WORLD OF THE WINDSORS Fall and rise

SECOND TIME AROUND Prince Charles with his second wife THE NEXT GENERATION Royal babies, including George and
Camilla Parker Bowles in 2015 during a visit to Northern Ireland Charlotte (third and fourth respectively in succession to the throne)
that was an important symbol of reconciliation have helped make the monarchy more popular than ever

for the Olympic opening ceremony that it is only respect for the Queen Ireland helped reclaim that moral
in London in 2012. She has after all herself that is keeping the royal show high ground which is a traditional
never resisted change (although she on the road and that the next in justication for a royal family and
has never sought it), and has encour- line for the throne (and there is no which, in the 1990s, they seemed to
aged the signs of change in her precedent for skipping a generation) have lost.
grandchildren very successfully. represents an insuperable problem The Queens diamond jubilee,
for the monarchy. There are un- and the moment in 2015 that she
he current warmth doubtedly queries as to what will became the longest-reigning mon-

T
towards the monar- happen when the iconic gure of arch in British history, felt like
chy must in part be Elizabeth II is gone not least to the national victories. The year 2016
down to Dianas sons, Commonwealth, of which Charles should see another feel-good moment,
William and Henry will not automatically become head. with her 90th birthday. It was once
(Harry), who are seen But even the Prince of Wales, said that, the English like queens,
as carrying on her secure in a happy second marriage, is and the new legislation allowing
legacy. William and Catherine perhaps more popular than he used royal sons and daughters to inherit on
Middletons 2011 royal wedding was to be. The recent release of black equal terms may mean we see more
GETTY IMAGES / REX FEATURES

an extraordinary high point of not spider memos messages that of them albeit not immediately.
just national but international interest, Charles sent to government minis- The House of Windsor is well on
as have been the births of their two ters raised doubts as to whether he the way to reinventing itself again
babies, George and Charlotte. would be able to sustain the impar- and, even with its feathers clipped,
Has the popularity of grandpar- tial position of a constitutional the phoenix that is the British
ents and grandchildren left Prince monarchy. But soon afterwards his monarchy will surely continue to y
Charles out in the cold? Some say visit of reconciliation to Northern well into the 21st century.

114 Royal Dynasties

 ABOUT THE AUTHORS
MAGAZINE
ROYAL DYNASTIES
Robert Bartlett is Wardlaw Sarah Gristwood is a
professor of medieval history broadcaster and writer. Her
at the University of St Andrews. books include Blood Sisters:
FROM THE MAKERS OF BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE He specialises in the history of The Women Behind the Wars of
England from 1066 to 1300 and the Roses (Harper Press, 2013).
presented the BBC Two TV She chronicles the fall and rise
EDITORIAL series The Plantagenets. of the royal house of Windsor
Editor Rob Attar He looks at the long rule of on page 108.
Production Editor Spencer Mizen the Plantagenet dynasty on
Art Editor Paul Jarrold page 60. Janice Hadlow is author of
Series Art Editor Susanne Frank The Strangest Family: The
Picture Editor Samantha Nott Stephen Bates is a writer and Private Lives of George III,
Editorial production Sue Wingrove former royal correspondent of Queen Charlotte and the
Additional work by Charlotte Hodgman, Matt Elton, Rachel Dickens, The Guardian newspaper. His Hanoverians (William Collins,
Sarah Lambert, Katherine Hallett, Rosemary Smith latest book is Royalty Inc: 2014). She is controller, seasons
historymagazine@historyextra.com Britains Best-Known Brand and special projects at BBC
(Aurum, 2015). On page 92 television. On page 76 she
Stephen describes what the explores George IIIs
Second World War meant for relationship with his family.
the Windsors.
Don Jordan and Michael
PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS George Bernard is professor Walsh have written a number
of early modern history at the of history books together,
Press ofcer Dominic Lobley 020 7150 5015
University of Southampton, and including The Kings Revenge:
dominic.lobley@immediate.co.uk
author of Anne Boleyn: Fatal Charles II and the Greatest
SYNDICATION Attractions (Yale University Manhunt in British History
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International Partners Manager Anna Brown new light on the relationship Cargo: The Forgotten History of
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PRODUCTION Boleyn on page 16. America (Mainstream Digital,
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Victorias Children: Royal in history at the University of
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Cousins at War and Prince York. His research interests
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Philip: The Plot to Make a King. lie in the political structures
CEO Tom Bureau
On page 84 he examines the and ideas of later medieval
Deputy Chairman Peter Phippen
important role of George V in England and his books include
Chairman Stephen Alexander
modernising the monarchy. Edward III (Yale University
BBC WORLDWIDE Press, 2011). He analyses the
Director of Editorial Governance Nicholas Brett Tracy Borman is an author signicance of Edward IIIs
Director of Consumer Products and Publishing Andrew Moultrie and historian. Her latest book is family on page 68.
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Weddings 10662011
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The Kreisky Media Consultancy, LLC about William and Matilda on
page 8; discusses Elizabeth Is
Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited, 2016 ISSN: 1469 8552 great love on page 24; compiles
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Cover pictures: Getty Images, Bridgeman Art Library

Back cover picture: Alamy
 ROYALDYNASTIES

In stark contrast to her own childhood,

Victoria ensured that all nine of her
children enjoyed a happy upbringing
TRACY BORMAN ON HOW VICTORIA AND ALBERT SOUGHT TO
CREATE A HAPPY, MODERN FAMILY IN THE 19TH CENTURY

FROM THE MAKERS OF MAGAZINE