Hampton Court Palace is one of the iconic images of Tudor England but the story goes much further than that.
Gareth Russell tells us not only about the palace, but the fascinating and often tragic stories of the people who lived there, from Henry VIII to George II, and what happened when it ceased to be a royal residence. There are lavish banquets, political conspiracies, family breakdowns, and even ghosts.
There is a whole section on grace and favour tenants, including Grand Duchess Xenia the last Tsar’s sister. I was enthralled from start to finish and couldn’t put it down.
The popular and “scrupulous historian” (Daily Mail, London) Gareth Russell presents five hundred years of British history—from King Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth II—as seen through the doorways of the exquisite Hampton Court Palace.
Architecturally breathtaking and rich in splendid art and décor, Hampton Court Palace has been the stage of some of the most important events in British history, such as the commissioning of King James’s version of the Bible, the staging of many of Shakespeare’s plays, and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation ball.
Accessible, engaging, and unputdownable, The Palace takes us into every room in the castle, revealing the…
The tragic fate of Alexei, the son of Nicholas II, cannot fail to touch anyone.
Born in 1904, he was brutally killed with the rest of his family in 1918 just because he was his father’s heir. George Hawkins has charted his short life from the diaries and letters of those closest to him, as well as Alexei’s own diary. They show Alexei as active, intelligent, fascinated with military life and with a strong sense of humour, despite the haemophilia that blighted his life.
They show normal palace life and then the sheer boredom of captivity after the revolution. Many of these writings are published in English for the first time, making this an unbelievably valuable source for the end of Tsardom and an absolutely fascinating read.
This is the recent English translation of a Spanish book about two of Queen Victoria’s lesser-known granddaughters.
Victoria Eugenie (Ena) of Battenberg married Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1906. Three years later her cousin Beatrice of Edinburgh & Saxe-Coburg (having been forbidden to marry her cousin Grand Duke Michael of Russia) married his cousin Infante Don Alfonso. Ena had to deal with her husband’s infidelities as well as her haemophiliac sons. Beatrice (Bee) and her husband were popular but jealousy and disagreements with the King resulted in their temporary exile.
I loved the friendship and mutual support given to each other by these cousins, whose attachment survived all the vicissitudes that life threw at them. This is a fascinating, little-known story.
Princess Eugenia (Ena) of Battenberg and Princess Beatrice (Bee) of Saxe-Coburg, granddaughters of Queen Victoria of England, married into the Spanish royal family. In 1906 Ena became the consort of King Alfonso XIII, who had been sovereign since his birth in 1886. Three years later Bee married his cousin, Infante Don Alfonso. Ena's marriage proved unhappy with the ill-health of her haemophiliac sons and her husband's infidelities. The King abdicated in 1931, and they led separate lives in exile until he died in 1941. Bee and her husband Ali were more popular, although personal differences between them and the King…
This joint biography of Princess Felix Youssoupov and his wife, Princess Irina, niece of Nicholas II, has every element of a truly epic story– drama, royalty, huge sums of money, murder, and revolution. Felix and Irina had it all – until Felix was involved in the murder of Gregory Rasputin, in which members of the British Secret Intelligence Service played a role.
Many of Irina’s relatives were murdered in the 1917 revolution, and the couple went from a life of wealth and privilege to exile in France. They opened a Paris fashion house, sold their jewels to make ends meet, and were finally saved from penury - by Rasputin.
I used many unpublished primary sources to reveal new facts about this fascinating couple.
