In January 1820, Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, legally became Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Queen of Hanover, as consort to the new King: George IV. But the King made it abundantly clear that Caroline was to have no part in his new reign and would not beContinue reading “Dukes of Brunswick I: Wolfenbüttel and the Unwanted Princess”
Category Archives: British consorts
The Anglo-Dutch Moment: the Bentinck dukes of Portland
The year 1688-1689 has been called by historians the ‘Anglo-Dutch Moment’, as the year when the ideas of English and Dutch limited monarchy came together in the person of William, Prince of Orange: King William III. Over three centuries later, one family, the Bentincks, still benefit from this relatively brief merging of national interests. HansContinue reading “The Anglo-Dutch Moment: the Bentinck dukes of Portland”
Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen
Where would you go if you wanted an incredible musical or theatrical experience in the later 19th century? One of Europe’s great music capitals—Vienna, Paris? The theatres in London? The capital cities of several small German principalities had either an orchestra or a theatre that punched well above its relative weight, like Weimar or Detmold,Continue reading “Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen”
Ansbach and Bayreuth: Secondogeniture lands for Hohenzollern princes
One of the benefits of the fragmentary nature of the German feudal states that made up the Holy Roman Empire was that small segments of a dynasty’s patrimony could be easily carved out to provide younger sons with a territory of their own to govern, a principality from which they could derive an income andContinue reading “Ansbach and Bayreuth: Secondogeniture lands for Hohenzollern princes”
Dukes of Teck, Dukes of Urach
The castles of Teck and Urach are not instantly familiar to even the most seasoned travellers, but both lent their names to dynasties with interesting close connections to more well-known royal and princely families—notably the Windsors and the Grimaldis—and even to an ephemeral kingdom in the Baltic that vanished before the ink was dry onContinue reading “Dukes of Teck, Dukes of Urach”
Dukes of Cleves, with Jülich, Berg and the Mark
‘Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived’. Possibly the most successful mnemonic in history; people who love Tudor history can even remember that Number Four (‘divorced’) was Anne of Cleves. But where on earth was Cleves? A misleading clue is in one of her historical nicknames, the ‘Flanders Mare’, though in the sixteenth century, Englishmen oftenContinue reading “Dukes of Cleves, with Jülich, Berg and the Mark”
Dukes of Oldenburg and Schleswig-Holstein
The name Windsor was chosen to represent the royal family of the United Kingdom in 1917, taken, quite rightly, from the castle that had been at the centre of royal operations in England since the 11th century. But if we go back to an older way of giving names to royal dynasties, the name traditionallyContinue reading “Dukes of Oldenburg and Schleswig-Holstein”
Princes of Battenberg
In a dramatic intimate moment of the first episode of the new season of ‘The Crown’, Prince Philip says to his daughter Princess Anne, “A Battenberg refuses to give in”. Who were the Battenbergs and why did this sentiment apply to recent members of the House of Windsor? More than just the namesake of aContinue reading “Princes of Battenberg”
Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha, families of two British consorts
Anyone who is interested in the history of the British monarchy is familiar with the names Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha: Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria is certainly a well-known figure; Princess Augusta, the mother of George III, probably less so. Those who have read about monarchies in the 19th century more generally are also awareContinue reading “Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha, families of two British consorts”
Dukes of Mecklenburg
Lovers of British royal history are familiar with the period when royal brides were regularly imported to England from small German principalities with intriguing names: Ansbach, Saxe-Gotha, Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The last of these was the native land of Queen Charlotte, consort of George III—she is probably the most familiar of these consorts, in part due toContinue reading “Dukes of Mecklenburg”
Dukes and Princes 