The possibility of losing one’s monarch at the hands of a lunatic induces panic. So when a royal figure survives an attack, especially with sangfroid, there’s relief all around. There’s a surge of public sympathy and support for the royal family and people express amazement at how cool their monarch can be.

Then, there’s a bit too much of a good thing. The media and the public get bored with cool, steely resolve after a while and get cranky. Queen Elizabeth II has experienced both the praise and the pouts of the people because of her grace under fire. As it turns out, it’s an experience that’s all in the family….

The Queen’s bravery in the face of chaos, as well as her calm demeanor in the face of, well, pretty much everything, can be attributed to her illustrious ancestor Queen Victoria. The great Queen had her share of close calls, and with it came the public frenzy of relief and affection.

While out for a drive in their carriage, the diminutive Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, were attacked by a youth firing a gun. Neither Victoria nor Albert was injured, but they were certainly taken aback. The would-be assassin quickly removed himself from the scene, leaving the couple to wonder if the shocking event had even really happened, so quickly did it occur.

The next day, Albert and Victoria made a point to go out in their carriage along the same route to see if the lad would attempt to shoot at them once again. The royal couple was determined to catch a glimpse of their assailant. Nearing the same juncture as from the previous day, their investigation was rewarded. Out of the scenery burst the young man, brandishing a gun and firing like mad.

They were blanks.

The marauder was caught in the act this time by a policeman. Both Queen and Consort were satisfied to learn his identity – twenty-two year old John Francis – and have him taken away.

Public emotion ran high over the incident, with tributes pouring in from every corner thanking God for sparing Her Majesty. The public was also agog over the couple’s bravery, though some said their actions were foolhardy. It had been too close a call.

The newspapers were full of ebullient praise for their sovereign and mass expressions of sentiment for the Royal Family fully bloomed. The country had long been lacking in sentiment: Victoria’s debauched forebears – all four German Georges as well as the Queen’s immediate predecessor, William IV – disgusted the British populace.

Victoria was the exact opposite: she was a pretty face attached to a duty-bound heart. She had a handsome husband who was devoted to her and their children, who were all adorable. A sweet family with such youthful vitality made the nation feel proud and hopeful. No one wanted to lose that.

Victoria responded to all of the outpouring of affection with similar expression. Addressing the loyal subjects and organizations who wished her well after the carriage incident, she stated, “My first desire is to live in the hearts of my people.”

With the advent of photography in the Victorian era, the Queen certainly could, at least, live on the hearths of her people in photos as if one of the family.

A certain intimacy was established between crown and country during this time, but with it came a certain intrusion and the public expectation that the royals should be “on” at all times. They had a captivating royal family at last, and they wanted to see them in action.

Prince Albert’s death would put a strain on the Queen’s new media-friendly monarchy. When Victoria went into seclusion after his demise, the public seemed almost offended at the loss of royal ceremonies, public duties, and celebrations.

She was still largely held in high esteem, but Victoria did do a certain amount of damage to the monarchy in the public sphere by declaring all ceremony and royal fanfare off-limits. No one could have any fun or be seen outside of a black wardrobe, as it might show disrespect to Albert’s memory. It made sense to Queen Victoria, but the public was not entirely happy with the constant morbidity. It was a tad too much.

Victoria’s descendant, Queen Elizabeth II, would also experience that sting of public backlash and media criticism when her emotions were restrained or privacy needed to come first.

Elizabeth has never gone into absolute seclusion for the better part of her life, nor has she called off royal ceremonies for an indeterminate amount of time. The Queen has, however, kept her emotions in check and needed a little quiet time after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. This was met with anger.

Elizabeth’s ability to look danger in the eye is legendary. The infamous shots fired at Her Majesty during the 1981 Trooping the Colour ceremony had everyone in disarray. The Queen, meanwhile, coolly soldiered on after calming her horse. After the ceremony she returned home via the very same route to Buckingham Palace. It was a “You won’t scare me!” gesture, just shy of a white-gloved thumb to her nose.

Even when a stranger broke into her bedroom in the early morning, Elizabeth kept her head. Michael Fagan slinked inside the palace and startled the Queen by sitting on her bed, talking about how disillusioned he felt.

Public adoration of the Queen skyrocketed. The media duly reported on how wonderful she was and praised her for her timely use of the vital organs during both of those dangerous events.

Come fifteen years later, the same feted Sovereign was criticized for being too cool and remote over Diana’s demise; instead of rushing into London wringing her hands and crying her eyes out, Her Majesty stayed secluded in Scotland’s Balmoral Castle with her grandsons, trying to cope with the tragedy. For this, she was roundly castigated:

WHERE IS OUR QUEEN? WHERE IS HER FLAG? screamed the newspaper headlines.

When trouble strikes, cool heads will save the day; but in this age of emotion, sometimes that isn’t enough.

(c) 2009 MandysRoyalty.org

Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria

Once there was Vicky, Alice, Helena, Louise, and Beatrice…

Now with Marie, Maud, Ena, Alix, and Sophie, we see the face of Europe change once more. Julia Gelardi’s book is a fascinating study of the lives of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters. It gets slightly difficult to read at times, because each woman’s life is chronicled along side the other. Winding is a good word for the style, but nevertheless, this book is a captivating look at another quintuple of royal kin. The first set was, of course, Queen Victoria’s own daughters, some of whom were the mothers of these powerful women…

Vicky, the Queen’s eldest child, married the Crown Prince of Prussia and gave birth to several children. Two of those children would be most significant to the political scene of Europe – Kaiser Wilhelm and his sister, Sophie, future Queen of Greece. Queen Sophie and the Greek royal family were caught in the crossfire of European politics. Deception and betrayal by major countries eventually forced them into exile, all because Greece wanted to stay neutral throughout WWI. The neutrality was seen as Greece siding with Germany, because after all, Sophie was the Kaiser’s sister. What people did not realize was that Wilhelm treated her very badly, and had exiled her from Prussia because of her conversion to Greek Orthodoxy. Hardly a close relationship.

Victoria’s second daughter, Princess Alice, was the mother of Empress Alexandra of Russia, the most tragic and famous of the five granddaughters. Alice’s early death from diphtheria greatly affected the young Alexandra, her once happy nature fading into sadness and wariness. She also became increasingly pious and withdrew into herself. We see that this is the beginning of a sensitive personality that would one day collapse further with the startling revelation that her only son and heir to the Russian throne was a hemophiliac. Alexandra would stop at nothing to help her son Alexei overcome his illness, even at the expense of her and the Tsar’s lives.

Princess Beatrice, the youngest of Victoria’s nine children, was mother to Queen Victoria Eugenie (Ena) of Spain. Ena had a wonderful marriage to King Alphonso XIII, that is until they discovered that their children carried the hemophilia gene. Alphonso blamed Ena and her family for the dreaded disease, and bolted from the marriage bed to carry out many affairs. However, Ena did her best to be a good Queen, and thoroughly immersed herself in Spanish culture. She had even become Catholic in order to marry into the Spanish royal family. Throughout political upheaval and occasional exile, Queen Ena was respected by the Spaniards and her grandson, Juan Carlos, reigns today.

Not to be outdone, two of Victoria’s princely sons produced the remaining consorts: Queen Marie of Romania was the daughter of Victoria’s son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Bertie, the future King Edward VII of England, fathered Queen Maud of Norway. Marie and Maud could not have been more different. In personalities, certainly; in countries, unavoidably. Romania was surrounded by warring countries, and suffered many of its own casualties throughout strife in the region. Norway, however, was relatively placid.

Maud began her married life as Princess Maud of Denmark, living in Copenhagen. She carried out many royal duties, but went back to England as much as possible. She loved her husband Charles, but she missed her old home. Much like her aunts Vicky and Alice, Maud regarded the English way of life as the only way to live. Soon, her thoughts of home and the visits to England would have to be put aside – her husband was offered the title of King of Norway. He accepted, and became King Haakon. Their only son, named Alexander, became Crown Prince Olav. True to form, the new Queen remained ‘Maud’.

Queen Marie’s life and outlook mirrored that of her aunt Vicky of Prussia. Her in-laws never warmed to her, but they took charge of her eldest son (Prince Carol) and made him bombastic, selfish, and hateful towards his mother and sisters. As Crown Princess, Marie tried her best to get along in her adopted country regardless, and was beloved by Romanians for her tireless war efforts. However, Marie did not have the happy marriage that Vicky came to know. Ferdinand of Romania was not faithful like his Prussian counterpart, Frederick (Fritz). Marie knew of Ferdinand’s dalliances and had her own affairs as well, most notably with Barbo Stirby. However, she and her husband, nicknamed “Nando”, worked closely to try to better serve Romania.

All in all, this is a great book and you will certainly enjoy the photographs therein. Wonderfully done.

(c) Mandy Searles
August 30, 2005

You will feel great sympathy towards Vicky, the Empress Frederick, who was an unfortunate hostage to the intrigues of the German court. Sympathy will soon give way to awe at her courage and determination to do her best while having to perform the impossible: being all things to all people…

Vicky was seen as the catalyst for change in Germany. Her parents, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert did not like the autocratic, militaristic way in which Emperor Wilhelm I was running Prussia. Instead, they visualized a united German nation with a government much like that of England. Their plan was to sow seeds of liberalism and constitutional monarchy through their daughter and her marriage to Wilhelm’s son, Prince Frederick (Fritz). In preparation for the eventual match, Vicky was schooled in politics and German life by Prince Albert. Eventually, she and Fritz would be Emperor and Empress of Prussia, and could bring about German unity.

Little did Vicky know that upon arriving in Berlin, she was at a disadvantage from the start.

As the daughter of Queen Victoria, she was encouraged to retain her Englishness yet was expected to be a Prussian wife and princess. Her efforts to raise her eldest son Willy as Prince Albert had raised her backfired. Her tendency to over-criticize (a trait passed on from Victoria) turned the young Wilhelm away, and he grew up under his thoroughly Prussian grandfather Wilhelm. Otto von Bismarck had seen his own chance to manipulate the future emperor, and along with the groveling royal court, Willy was turned into a bombastic power fanatic.

Her relationship with Fritz was not seen as loving, but as an English princess scheming to Anglicize the House of Hohenzollern. Vicky was painted as “die Englanderin”, unfaithful to Germany and a demon on the shoulder of her husband, whom she ‘manipulated’.

Hopes that Fritz’s mother, Empress Augusta, would watch over Vicky were dashed. Augusta was known to be very liberal and free-thinking, unusual for royal women of the time. In her they thought they had an ally, but both the Queen and Vicky would be sorely disappointed. The once-progressive Augusta had seen her marriage to Emperor Wilhelm unravel over the years, and as a result she became a bitter, self-absorbed woman. She gave Vicky little support in her new role.

When they finally became Emperor and Empress, Vicky and Fritz had precious little time to implement any real changes. Fritz died from cancer of the larynx three months into his reign. Upon his passing, Vicky was left alone and devoid of support or influence. Your heart cries at the unfairness of brilliant minds wasted, while Willy becomes Kaiser Wilhelm II – egotistical, manipulative, and dangerous.

Thankfully, Vicky did not live to see the destruction of the Hohenzollern dynasty when Wilhelm II pulled Germany and England into a devastating world war. After fighting his own relations across Europe, he headed into exile, never to see the throne again. Albert’s catalyst did indeed create a change, but not in the way he had expected. Germany would be unified, but the reigning royal house would fall from power, never to recover.

Mandy Searles (c) 2005

The subject on everyone’s mind in Monaco these days is marriage: Stephanie’s marriage, Caroline’s marriage, Albert’s marriage, even Rainier’s marriage. Since none of the ruling Grimaldi family is married at the moment, and since the only point in having royalty (even teeny-tiny royalty like Monaco’s) is to see them behaving just like everyone else (only more so, or less so, depending on the state of their public relations) — well, after ten years of bad press, bad luck, and illegitimate babies, you can imagine it’s time for some domestic tranquility. Someone in Monaco has to get married, and fast, if only to prove that they’re still in the game….

It was a wedding that first put Monaco on the map, don’t forget, in 1956, when Grace Kelly left her role as a Hollywood princess for a new career as Europe’s most visible and dazzling Catholic grande dame. Her death in an auto accident in 1982 left a void in Monte Carlo that nothing and no one seems able to fill. Ask anyone: Grace’s tomb is the major tourist attraction in Monaco after the palace and the casino, which pretty much sums up her role in history and the principality at large.

“She was superior in the same way that Peter Pan was superior,” says Jeffrey Robinson, a friend of Princess Caroline who serves as the Grimaldi family’s official biographer. Rainier himself speaks of the memory of Princess Grace as “the motivation, true and deep, that keeps us all going.” Friends remember how “sweet” she was before her marriage, how “lovely” and “enchanting,” and how “royal” she became with the passage of time. If, today, Rainier and his children are mentioned in the same breath with the Queen of England as the world’s most glamorous figureheads, it is thanks to Grace and to Grace alone.

I’d better clarify that: it’s really only the children who are glamorous. Rainier himself is a Mediterranean capitalist, the descendant of pirates, if truth be told, who would rather watch television and eat pizza in his underwear than attend the parties, galas, balls, and fêtes that traditionally make up the Monaco season. Periodically, since Grace’s death, he has been linked romantically with one or another hard-bitten socialite on the razzle-dazzle circuit (most notably the “Business Princess,” Ira von Fürstenberg), but no one doubts that his first devotion is to the principality — “Monaco, Inc.,” 485.87 acres of porous rock and priceless sunshine and the most valuable real estate on the French Riviera. Apart from that, the aging Prince hasn’t got a lot of “interests.”

“Let’s face it,” a woman I know is frank in admitting, “if Caroline, Albert and Stephanie were to be killed in a plane crash, which God forbid, nobody would give a damn ever again about Rainier. His face wouldn’t sell two magazines on its own.” And don’t let anyone kid you: selling magazines — selling Monaco — is what it’s all about. Nothing in the country would function at all without the Prince’s family to promote it, open it, close it, bless it, and be photographed with it. In 1982, when Grace died, the National Enquirer sent 16 reporters to Monte Carlo to cover her funeral. Earlier, when Princess Caroline married Phillipe Junot, the Enquirer offered $5,000 to anyone who would sell his ticket to the ball that preceded the wedding. (No one did.) There are only a handful of people in the world who get this kind of media attention. The Kennedys, the Windsors, Elizabeth Taylor — and the Grimaldis, whose problems make the lives of the others look like fun-time in comparison. Basically what you’ve got in the line of succession are a Bad Girl, a Good Widow, and a Nice Boy on a Bobsled.

Taking the Bad Girl first: Stephanie of Monaco — rock star, swimsuit designer, wannabe actress and full-time brat — is the Problem Child of Europe, a girl the French papers call “princesse rockeuse” not just on account of her up-and-down career as a pop singer. Karl Lagerfeld once described Stephanie as “a sporty version of Madonna.” She had made Earl Blackwell’s worst-dressed list by the time she was twenty-one. She chews her nails and likes to tell jokes — the dirtier the better.

“What did the elephant say to the naked man?” Stephanie once asked a friend of her mother’s at dinner, and when he grinned and said he didn’t know, she answered brightly, “Do you really eat out of that thing?” She is deliberately provocative, even outrageous, in her public appearances, and she hopes to come back in some future life reincarnated as a dolphin.

“I hate being a princess,” Stephanie says — but she relies on it, too, just as often, and usually at the top of her voice. She is one of those unfortunate celebrities whose garbage cans are stolen by journalists and sifted for clues. She throws out unused plane tickets, spare change, sedatives, and pictures of herself; it’s hard to get at the truth, of course, if you’re picking through hair mousse and globs of pasta. One of the nicest things I’ve heard anybody say about Stephanie is that “she has a lot of anger.” She’s made a lot of headlines, too, since surviving the accident that killed Princess Grace. She was only seventeen in 1982, when her mother’s Rover, with the two of them in it, plunged off the mountain road from La Turbie on its way down to Monaco. Many believe that Stephanie was actually driving the car, or that she and Grace were having “a raging, slapping fight,” and that one or the other of them drove deliberately over the edge. There is some horrible chatter indeed on the Riviera about Princess Grace’s final hours. The tabloids, when they aren’t making a case for Mafia or PLO involvement in Grace’s death, slyly point to suicide.

“The curve they went over is directly above a cemetery,” a reporter in Paris once told me in all seriousness. “Grace would have known that. We think she wanted to fly off to join the angels.” Stephanie has “had help” in dealing with the trauma, but it’s the kind of thing, obviously, she won’t ever get over. A couple of years ago, she had a tattoo removed from an unspecified part of her body, because it bore the name (also unspecified) of one or the other of her former boyfriends. Now she’s playing at unwed motherhood, shacking up — what else can I call it? — with Daniel Ducruet, who regularly makes headlines himself by attacking photographers, personal enemies, rival suitors, total strangers, and beating them to a pulp.

“He’s bad news,” anyone in Monaco can tell you — and they will, provided you swear not to quote them by name. “Gossip was invented in Monaco,” Prince Rainier has said, but so was the happy dictatorship, “the last oasis of peace and dreams.” If you want to live in the principality, you have to play by the rules. There’s no other way. “And when you live here,” a friend of mine observes, “you really believe that you’re protected.”

As a matter of fact, you are. There are 450 openly acknowledged policemen in the principality, serving an official population that never quite exceeds 30,000 souls. Half of these, at any given moment, are probably somewhere else, since an awful lot of them are millionaires, businessmen, rock stars, and socialites. Of the roughly 5000 people who are actual Monégasques (born there, and engaged in picturesque occupations for the sake of the tourists), most earn their living from one or another component of Prince Rainier’s hugely profitable gambling, real-estate, advertising, and corporate-convention empire. There is no crime to speak of — no street crime, anyway — and no unemployment. The principality is an industry in the exact sense. It’s a theme park, a playground, a triumph of marketing, and a model of design. It’s also a police state, where you can be thrown out for insulting the Prince and his family when you walk down the street in your diamonds.

“We have video cameras in key locations around the principality,” Rainier admits, “on street corners, in passageways and in public lifts. It’s proven very dissuasive so we’re extending the system. Let’s face it, if a fellow sees a camera on a corner he’s not going to do much because he knows the police are watching.”

They’re listening, too. Every journalist in Monaco learns before long that his phone has been tapped. Old hands tell stories about operators bursting into conversations between writers and editors, shouting, “That isn’t true!” and, “How can you say such things about the Princess!” I went to dinner with a young man who recently opened a business in Monte Carlo, and he prefaced our conversation with the most extraordinary warnings — caveats I thought had gone out with the Cold War.

“Shhhhhhh!” he kept saying, glancing shiftily around the Café de Paris. “When you talk, talk quietly!” I was not to identify him by profession or even nationality, because if I did, he told me, he would be “expelled.” He was serious: “I will be out of here — like that!” Prince Rainier has an agreement with the French government that permits him, as an absolute monarch, to exile anyone he pleases not just from Monaco, but, if necessary, from all four départements of the French Riviera. Magazines and books with a “pessimistic” view of the Grimaldis, furthermore, are banned from the principality.

“You don’t hear a negative word about any of them,” says Irish writer Genevieve Lyons, who spends part of every summer in nearby Antibes. “People on the Riviera — not just Monaco — all want Caroline or Albert or Rainier at their parties. They want their patronage, they want to lie in their sun. And the gossip mill functions so smoothly here that if you did say anything nasty about them they’d hear about it before breakfast.” So nobody’s saying anything nasty about Princess Stephanie’s new career as a mother. She and Daniel Ducruet have been giving a lot of interviews lately to say how happy they are with the baby, and how happy Prince Rainier is to have another grandson, and how happy they’re all going to be when she and Daniel finally get married, which they will, only why rush, and besides (this is Daniel talking), “Marriage is a beautiful ceremony which shouldn’t be overshadowed by any sense of obligation.” (Tell that to the ghost of Princess Grace.)

“It’s so sad, so sad,” says a friend of Grace’s in New York. People’s eyes tend to widen when you ask about Stephanie, and royalty, in general, smacks its collective brow at the mention of her name. She is such an easy target for the tabloid press that it’s tempting to overlook her very real accomplishments and her winning sense of humor. It’s also a fact that her lovers and paramours, as a rule, do not discuss her when she’s finished with them. They like her. They are loyal in that sense.

“I think there’s a sort of a myth at work here,” says the doorman of an ultra-hot nightclub in Paris where Stephanie sometimes appears. “Every girl in France dreams of being a princess who hangs out with hoodlums. All of the movies are about that, all the commercials. That’s their dream. And Stephanie lives it.”

Caroline, meanwhile, is on to something else, slowly recovering from the terrible sorrow occasioned by the death of her husband, Italian businessman Stefano Casiraghi, in a speedboat accident in 1990. (Take it from me that everyone in Monte Carlo is described as a businessman sooner or later. They’re in “real estate,” or “development,” or “import-export,” and it all means money — preferably untraceable.) For most of her life before she married Casiraghi, Caroline played the same kind of circus-princess role that Stephanie acts out now. She was petulant, unruly, sometimes stupidly defiant and shocking. Her transformation, as one of her admirers puts it in a shimmering image, “from slut to saint,” is one of the most interesting of our times, and she doesn’t mind at all anymore when she’s compared to Princess Grace.

“I can’t stand to carry the burden of her unrealized ambition,” Caroline griped about her mother in 1978, at the ripe old age of 21. She said many superior things in the first flush of her independence, when she appeared as the toast of jet-set society and quite brazenly smashed her way into marriage with the much older, cavalier, epicurean Phillipe Junot. “He works with banks,” Grace remarked (frostily, we can imagine.) Caroline tells a story now — and it’s worth pointing out that she reveres her mother’s memory — of finding Grace one day bent over a copy of the Almanach de Gotha, hunting for suitable sons-in-law among the European nobility.

“Drop him or marry him,” she advised her daughter when it came to Junot, and Caroline married him, “out of naivety,” she supposes, “or maybe in the spirit of rebellion.” Grace was appalled at Caroline’s choice of men, but she summoned enough of her accustomed generosity to give her one of the all-time glamorous weddings of the 1970s — an unforgettable occasion, to hear the guests tell it, when a great deal of cocaine went up a lot of famous noses.

“Look at my little girl,” Grace cooed as Caroline tied what proved to be the loosest of knots. “She looks just like a princess!” (Friends, befuddled, were obliged to answer, “She is, Gracie. She is a princess.”) By the time the Vatican, late last year, finally got around to granting Caroline an annulment from Junot, everyone agreed that she had paid her debt to society. Tragedy — sudden death — had sobered her twice.

“Caroline is fantastic,” says Prince Dmitri of Yugoslavia, whose own family has known the Grimaldis for years. “She’s highly intelligent, highly cultivated. She’s brilliant. She can talk about anything: politics and art and metaphysics. She really is the kind of person you’d want to have next to you at dinner.” She is notoriously more exciting, at least in public, than her unmarried brother, Albert, whose gifts lie more in the line of administration and ribbon-cutting. After Grace’s death, rumors were rife that a grieving Rainier wanted to abdicate, and that Caroline (with or without her father’s consent) would “seize the throne” from Albert. These stories, denied by the palace as “ridiculous and completely without foundation,” were rather more dramatic than the situation warranted, but there’s truth to the suspicion that Caroline’s fingers will need prying loose if and when her brother takes a wife. There is nothing false about her devotion to the duties she inherited from Princess Grace, nor was there anything “sham” about her second marriage to Stefano Casiraghi. She was heartbroken when Stefano died, pulverized with grief, and there was real concern among her friends that she might crack under the strain of her loss.

She hasn’t — she won’t. She’s taken the time to recover for real, and all of a sudden she’s smiling again, to the intense satisfaction of the tabloids and the lace-tatting Monégasques. Caroline has had a lot of help in her bereavement from French actor Vincent Lindon, her boyfriend of record, who is “shadowy” in a way that differs substantially from most of the lizards you meet in Monte Carlo. He is private. He’s actually shy, and he’s completely devoted to Caroline’s three children by Casiraghi, Andrea, Charlotte, and Pierre. Lindon is also Jewish, and would presumably need to convert to Catholicism if he wants to marry Caroline — though why the Grimaldis, looking at the record of royalty over the last ten years, would need to be sticklers for protocol is beyond the ken. It has something to do with the laws of succession, obviously: Monaco enjoys a treaty of independence with its gaping neighbor, France, which stipulates that the Prince’s family has to produce a legitimate (i.e., a Catholic) heir, otherwise Monaco becomes French territory.

This is the upshot of “the Albert Problem,” the confusion that exists in the public mind about the man who is frequently described as the most eligible bachelor in Europe. At 35, Albert of Monaco is handsome, athletic (he’s an Olympic bobsledder), a wee bit nervous, and as nice as the day is long — “the dictionary definition of nice,” says a friend of the family. “He is nice, nice, nice.” Albert is the “sweetest” of all the Grimaldis, the most like his mother, with Grace’s tact and her well-known concern for the feelings of other people. (There is a marvelous story about Princess Grace and Diana Spencer, when they met for the first time on the eve of Diana’s marriage to the Prince of Wales. Grace found her crying in the ladies’ room at a party and folded her in her arms. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’ll get worse.”) For a number of years after Grace died, Prince Rainier kept insisting he would give up his throne as soon as Albert was “settled and confident. It will also have to do with when Albert gets married,” Rainier explained. Albert knows that the heat is on in this regard, but so far he’s refused to succumb to the pressure. He’ll take a wife when he’s ready, he says. Or not.

“Have you talked to any of his girlfriends?” a friend of Grace’s asked me when I called. “Is he a homosexual?” She thinks he isn’t. She thinks that people just think he is. “Every time I’ve seen him, God knows,” she says, “he’s surrounded by bimbos.” There is a fierce protectiveness toward Albert on the part of all his family and friends, and while everybody wants to tell you what a nice guy he is, he remains a blurry figure, not as thrilling, somehow, as you think he might be. He’s cautious, undeveloped, out of focus.

“He wants to make you feel comfortable,” says an American woman who dated Albert in Monte Carlo. She is very pretty, a leggy blonde, like most of his former sweethearts.

“When I went out with him,” she confides, “at nightclubs, or on his yacht, wherever, there were lots of — well, it’s not that I think I’m lower-class, but … there were lots of rich people. I was never made to feel that I was less than they were.” She was also never encouraged to think that she might become the next Princess of Monaco: “I didn’t think that anything `serious’ was going to come out of it. He didn’t try to kid me, and I respect him for that. I feel that he will always be a good friend of mine. He will always be there for me if I need him.” The girl explains that she “lost it” with Albert only once, when she complained that he was hard to reach (in the actual sense).

“I never see you,” she cried. “You’re always busy!” And Albert replied with perfect sincerity, “But you see me more than anyone else I’m dating.”

“And you know what?” says his friend. “I believed him. I’d probably seen him all of twice that month. But this is the thing: he never pretended with me.” She gently rejects the suggestion that Albert might be gay. She’s a professional dancer, and she knows from homosexuals: she “would have noticed.” Albert himself has publicly denied the rumors about his sexuality, but he’s smart enough to realize that no denial he can make would satisfy the press or his eager legion of gay male fans. His photograph appears in the newspapers with astonishing regularity as he frolics in boats and on sunlit beaches with a wide assortment of bare-breasted girls. He’s been seen on the slopes, so to speak, in the company of Brooke Shields, Donna Rice, Catherine Oxenberg, and, most recently, Claudia Schiffer, but again, so far as anyone knows, there’s “nobody serious” in the picture.

“And why should there be?” asks a friend of Albert’s in New York? Albert is only 35, a little older than Rainier was when he met Grace Kelly. I asked his pal to tell me “what makes Albert tick,” and the answer came without a beat: “Girls. Girls and sports and good friends.”

Is Albert gay? I blurted out (hang the consequences!).

“I’m not going to give you any details,” his friend replied. “Let’s just say I’ve been out with him at night.” He added something I couldn’t catch about “bringing them home,” then said: “Do you think it would be easy for Albert to find a bride? It’s one thing to marry a bimbo, it’s another thing to marry someone like his mother. She was superb. She was the best thing that ever happened to the principality.” There remains the possibility that Albert is just too boring and too nice for the shark-infested waters of Monaco, but this, as so much else, remains to be seen.

Will Albert marry? Will Rainier abdicate? Will Caroline seize the throne? (Let’s leave Daniel and Stephanie out of it.)

“It isn’t a joke!” cried a well-known film producer with a house in Monte Carlo, when I ventured that none of it mattered a damn. “I mean” — he was getting a bit misty — “God bless the principality! It’s a jewel! It’s a paradise! And the more the rest of the world deteriorates, the more I realize how lucky we are. I go to church every day to pray for the health of the Prince and his family. I really pray that God will keep them safe and sane. Because that is my security.”

And you know what? I believed him.

Reproduced exactly as published by “Cosmopolitan” in July 1993. Reprinted here by gracious permission of Peter Kurth. http://www.peterkurth.com

How would you hide from the paparazzi, your scathing skeptics or needy subjects if you were a member of royalty? Would you own several homes far, far away from your domain? Or, would you show up unexpectedly with bodyguards and staff to a high-priced resort tucked neatly away in the Caribbean…?

It appears that some royalty maintain traditions where they show up at a summer home on schedule, a habit that tends to keep news about their travels low-key. Lately, however, it seems that some royalty have altered those well-known habits based upon political agendas or to simply break with generations-old customs. Why settle for the musty family summer palace when you can visit a new high-priced resort geared to royalty?

This ability to venture beyond tradition has led to another new trick for royalty and celebrities alike – if you can travel with staff, why not stay in the home of another multi-millionaire? This possibility has led some royals to stay in celebrity homes, palaces that belong to other royal families or in the homes of corporate CEOs who unabashedly rent their abodes for tens of thousands of dollars per week.

We discovered all the above choices when we picked a handful of royals to follow for their vacations and getaways. While the sites listed below are numbered and listed in alphabetical order, these organizational techniques do not indicate that we favor one getaway over another or that they are listed in order of value.

1. Château de Caïx: Queen Margrethe of Denmark is a real homebody. Although she visits other heads of state for political reasons, her heart stays with her homeland as she officially resides at Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen (where the Queen was born), spends summer at Marselisborg Castle near Århus, and uses Fredensborg Castle in North Zealand during the spring and fall. But, Queen Margrethe and her husband, Prince Henrik, also acquired a more private abode in 1974 when they purchased the Château de Caïx in Cahors, southern France. This latter home is the Queen’s true playground, where she can devote herself to her painting, graphic work and other artistic pursuits. Her works have been displayed at several exhibitions since 1988. This home also is a hideaway for her husband and his French relatives when he wants to escape Danish royal life, as this home originally belonged to his wine-producing family. Henrik was born to French parents, and his native tongue also is French.
2. Marivent Palace (Palma de Mallorca): This is the traditional summer home for Spanish King Juan Carlos and his royal family. While kings usually grant aging castles and palaces to municipalities, this building was granted by the city to the king when he was a prince. King Carlos and his son, both ardent sailors, participate in the Yacht Regattas in August and the Royal Yacht is moored in Portals Nous. Palma is the major city and port on the island of Mallorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Spanish Balearic Islands in Europe. In 2007, however, tradition was broken when Juan Carlos’ daughters, princesses Cristina and Elena, arrived in Budva, Montenegro to stay at the Iberostar Bellevue in August. Also known as the Budva Riviera, this coastal town is a tourist attraction and one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic sea coast in southeastern Europe. The hotel is located along the spectacular Plaza Bellevue beach and is surrounded by unspoilt, green countryside. Located just a few miles from the center of Budva, a jet-set summer resort, this hotel has been historically marked as a destination for European royal families. Among the prestigious hotels located here is the “Milocer,” former residence of royal family Karadordevic of Serbia.
3. Michael Appe home: Few individuals would know about this home or its location in the Town of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, unless they were born in the region, if they have too much money and a reason to hide away, or if they read the news about French President Sarkozy’s stay here in summer 2007. When French President and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (also simply known as Nicolas Sarkozy), visited this lakeside a town of around 6,000 residents 85 miles north of Boston last year, many learned that this area bills itself as the oldest summer resort in the U.S. Wolfeboro is a popular tourist destination because of its proximity to Lake Winnipesaukee. For residents, Wolfeboro represents a town with the seventh highest per capita income and the lowest crime rate in the country, the highest SAT scores for its students and – as a further benefit – a location in one of the lowest taxed states in the country. Like many current royalty, Sarkozy holed up in another multimillionaire’s home for his vacation, one that belongs to former Microsoft executive Michael Appe. Appe rents his 13,000-square-foot home for $30,000 per week, a fact that didn’t escape the notice of Sarkozy’s French critics. That amount equals one-third of the French president’s annual salary, another fact that might lead observers to understand that Sarkozy may not need his salary to stay afloat on Lake Winnipesaukee. Wolfeboro has a long history of hosting the rich and famous, including Monaco’s Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, author Kurt Vonnegut and actress Drew Barrymore.
4. Mustique: The Island of Mustique was made private when it was leased for 99 years from the British Commonwealth by Scotsman Colin Tennant aka Lord Glennconner in 1958. He turned the island into a hideway for British royals and celebrities. He lost the island in the 1970s, but the island remained private thanks to the operation and ownership of the Mustique Company, an organization comprised of shareholders and villa owners who are dedicated to protecting this island’s natural beauty, tranquility and privacy. Comprised of 1,400 acres, Mustique is part of the Grenadines in the West Indies on the edge of the Caribbean. Prince William and his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton escaped to this resort for a romantic getaway in 2006, and they stayed in a villa owned by John Robinson (a close friend of Kate’s parents), the multimillionaire founder of the Jigsaw fashion chain (where Kate once worked). A more recent trip by Prince William and Kate put them in the £1,785-per-night Villa Alumbrera, one of the island’s most opulent and secluded mansions, for a week. This villa is owned by the widow of Swedish mining tycoon Adolf Lundin. Other royalty who have frequented this island include Princess Margaret and Viscout David Linley. Prices range from $5,000 per week for a two-bedroom villa to $27,000 per week for a nine-bedroom villa, depending upon season. Single rooms range from $500 to $1,400 per night. The most popular ‘hangout’ on the island is Basil’s Bar, which also is home to the Mustique Blues Festival. Proceeds from the sale of the festival’s CDs and t-shirts fund the Basil Charles’ Education Fund, an organization that provides education for children who reside in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
5. Nagarjung Palace: One way to use a royal summer home is to house a former king within its walls. Although King Gyanendra of Nepal won’t be playing around here, at least he has a roof over his head. And, he can dream about all the former summers he spent at Nagarjung Palace. King Gyanendra of Nepal was dethroned in May 2008 by this country’s new Constitutuent Assembly, which abolished the Asian monarchy and declared Nepal a republic. Officials met with Gyanendra in June, and the former King asked the new government to find alternative accommodation as his former home was occupied by his son and his family. The Cabinet decided to allow Gyanendra to move to Nagarjung Palace, which is situated on a forested hill on the edge of Katnamdu. Gyanendra used Nagarjung palace as his summer home, as it is surrounded by walls and has remained off-limits to the public. The palace has been nationalized by the new government along with most of the royal assets. It’s unknown how long Gyanendra will remain at the summer palace, or if the public will be able to view the inside of this vacation home in the near future. The monarchy’s end was the culmination of a two-year peace process that saw communist insurgents give up their armed struggle, join mainstream politics and win the most seats in April elections.
6. Necker Island: Before Sir Richard Branson became a “Sir,” he visited the British Virgin Islands to investigate real estate for his rock stars signed to his then new Virgin Label. Necker Island was the final island on his list, and he made such a lowball bid on the £3 million price tag for this 74-acre piece of real estate that he was evicted from the island. But, the owner, Lord Cobham, eventually settled for £180,000. Within three years and for $10 million, Branson built a 10-bedroom Balinese-style villa that crowns a hill above the beach. Each of the ten bedrooms contains open walls that provide a 360-degree view and cooling winds from any direction within the house. Built from local stone and Brazilian hardwoods, the retreat is decorated with antiques, art and bamboo furniture from Bali. With accommodations for up to 28 people, the entire resort rents for $47,000 per day. Famous figures who have stayed at Branson’s resort include the late Princess Diana, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Janet Jackson, Harrison Ford, Eddie Murphy and Oprah Winfrey. If you want to visit the island you can find a way to join a legitimate scientific expedition to study a rare species of gecko, which has full and unfettered access to the island. You can reach Necker via San Juan (Puerto Rico), St Thomas, Antigua or Barbados followed by a connecting flight to Beef Island, Tortola. From Beef Island there’s a 30-minute transfer via the Necker Island private launch. Necker Island currently is one of eight getaways now owned by Virgin Limited Edition
7. Paleis Het Oude Loo: Het Oude Loo is not a palace as much as a “Lust-hof,” or retreat, located near Apeldoorn, Netherlands in Europe. Now owned by the state, the former royal residence was built starting in 1684 for Stadtholder William III and his consort, Mary II of England. For over three hundred years, Het Loo was the summer residence of the House of Orange-Nassau, which became the Dutch royal family. Queen Wilhelmina declared that when she died the palace would go to the State, and it did in 1962 when Wilhelmina died at this retreat. After a thorough restoration, Het Loo now houses a national museum and library devoted to the House of Orange-Nassau in Dutch history and its gardens recently have been renovated to match earlier representation. Yet, Het Loo remains habitable, as evidenced by the use of the palace by Japanese royalty who are close friends to the royal family of Netherlands. Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited the Netherlands in October 1979 and May 2000 and stayed at the Het Oude Loo castle on both occasions. In the latest known visit, Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito and his family, on a two-week private trip to the Netherlands in 2006, visited former royal stables with Queen Beatrix and her family and stayed at Het Loo. This summer home is worth a visit by anyone who is interested in architecture, gardening and history. You can visit the park all year round, but the area around the castle is open only a few months a year.
8. Sofiero Palace: This palace represents a royal retreat that has been given to the state, while the current royals in Sweden look to other resources for relaxation. Sofiero Palace was King Gustav VI Adolf’s summer residence throughout his adult life, and he bequeathed Sofiero to Helsingborg Municipality in his will in 1973 after he created one of the most spectacular rhododendron collections at this estate. Few Swedish palaces can boast a more beautiful European setting. Today, there are over 10,000 rhododendron bushes of 300 varieties and just as many hybrids on the grounds. In recent years, the park has hosted a wide range of events, including open-air concerts, garden displays, exhibitions, courses and craft fairs. The current King of Sweden, His Majesty Carl XVI Gustaf, is the grandson of King Gustav VI Adolf, and he became the heir apparent when his father died in an airplane crash one year after the he was born. King Carl XVI Gustaf is most well known as the presenter of the Nobel Prizes each year. He and his family tend to travel to various locations for their ‘play’ rather than to retreat to a summer palace. With that said, visitors to Sofiero often can bump into royalty when they attend gallery openings or other events held at this palace.
9. The Glass Villa (Camli Kösk): Turkish presidents reside in the Çankaya Palace (shown at left), which takes its name from Ankara’s Çankaya district in the south of the capital. The palace, which was first used by Atatürk, has an important place in the history of Turkish politics. The compound, which has been enlarged in time with additional buildings and facilities, covers an area of over 400 acres. Designed by Seyfi Arkan, a Turkish architect, as a single-story modern residence during the mid 1930s, the Glass Villa is part of this compound and has served as a residence for Prime Ministers and Speakers of the Republican Senate until 1970. Through the years, the Glass Villa was extensively modified and extended, the latest having been completed in 1996. Since then, it serves again as a guest house for visiting heads of states as it once did in the 1950s. Although uncertain, we believe this may be the building where Queen Elizabeth II stayed on her recent visit to Ankara. Outside Ankara, Turkey has laid out the welcome mat country-wide to royals who wish to support Turkey’s bid to join the European Union (EU). So far as the West is concerned, Turkey can be said to be the most successful example of a Muslim country which has embraced democracy. Turkey closed its first chapter of negotiations with the EU in June 2006, and in May 2008, Queen Elizabeth II made her first visit to Turkey in 37 years. Despite France’s opposition to these developments, the French beauty, Marie Cavallier, joined Prince Joachim of Denmark in Turkey for a romantic getaway in summer 2007, where he proposed to her on bended knee. No matter if it’s Ankara, Bursa, Istanbul or some unknown hideaway, expect to hear about some royal getaway or real estate purchase news from this country over the upcoming seasons. The earliest date that Turkey could enter the EU, by the way, is 2013.
10. Whisper Bay: This new and exclusive development represents the typical resort that is replacing summer palaces and homes for many royals and celebrities. Located in Airlie Beach, near Queensland, Australia, this area – together with adjacent Shute Harbour – provides one of the embarkation points for both the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. Airlie Beach, has appealed to backpackers for years, so it historically has been a relaxed and low-key tourist destination. But, this feel is changing rapidly, thanks to developers such as Rory O’Brien’s $280 million-dollar Whisper Bay project. A horde of the rich and famous, who use jets and sails to travel to and from this resort, have bought into O’Brien’s development among other exclusive development enclaves located in this area. Airlee Beach residents and visitors now see the likes of Scottish actor Sean Connery, former Dreamworld boss John Longhurst, ex-league rugby star Matthew Johns, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and shipping multimillionaire Owen Glenn as they enjoy the area’s relaxing amenities. As a side note, Airlee Beach really doesn’t contain a beach – but it does sport a man-made lagoon.

From: International Listings by Andy Hagans and Brian Thibault.

She was the baby of the family and her story is one of my favorites. This is a picture of Princess Beatrice on her wedding day, wearing her mother’s wedding veil. Her mother, of course, was Queen Victoria. Beatrice was the only daughter—and there were many—to be given the privilege of wearing Victoria’s own veil of honiton lace…

It might seem at times that whenever you read about the royals, Queen Victoria’s name pops up somehow. That’s because Victoria really was considered the “grandmama of Europe.” That’s because her relatives—and then her children and grandchildren went on to assume many of the thrones of Europe.

But back to Beatrice…the baby. As much as Victoria moaned about being pregnant and loathed it—in the end, the pregnancy and birth of baby Beatrice was to begin one of the fulfilling relationships of her life. It all began on a chilly night in December, 1861. It was the night that young Beatrice’s father died in the Blue Room at Windsor. But this just wasn’t any father…this was Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s adored–and I mean adored–husband. The night he died, the agonized and grief stricken Queen, picked up her youngest child and carried Beatrice to her own bed, laying with her throughout the night, holding Albert’s nightclothes and clutching their youngest child. There was something special about Beatrice…in some ways she was the nearest link to Albert. Beatrice comforted her.

The baby had been a happy and carefree child, full of enthusiasms–but, as Victoria’s world crumbled on that terrible night, so would Beatrice’s personality. Never again would relatives see the confident, bubbly personality of the old Beatrice. After that night it was buried away forever, and she became guarded. I’m sure it was partly shock–seeing her distraught mother and family–but it was also partly in response to the years of mourning that went on in the daily life of Victoria’s court…crying, hushed voices, tension, melancholy, melodrama.

Each elder daughter took her turn in looking after her mother. They acted as liaisons, secretaries and precious shields, keeping away the world. Eventually, Beatrice rightfully assumed her turn. Because Beatrice was the baby, there was no question that she would stay in this needed position. Whilst her other sisters married, marriage for Beatrice could not be a consideration. Quite frankly, Queen Victoria simply couldn’t do without her. And that was that.

Beatrice lived a quiet life, in rooms near her mother. She was at the Queen’s side from morning till night, reading her letters, taking dictation and notes, keeping callers at bay and keeping her dear mother company. Beatrice was very good at it too. She naturally deferred to her mother’s authority and her life was filled with all of the things that a loving companion would naturally do. She was protective, caring and genuinely adored her mother and enjoyed being with her, for the most part. She accompanied her from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, then to Osborne House and we can’t forget Balmoral Castle in Scotland. For the most part they traveled to and from the latter three homes as Victoria was much too nervous to spend too much time in London.

But there always comes a time, when…well, things change. And things changed in a big way for Beatrice. In her late twenties and already a confirmed spinster, she met Henry of Battenberg at a large family event in Darmstadt. She fell in love instantly with the very handsome Battenberg…all the Battenberg brothers were known to be very handsome. And that was that. She could be as stubborn as her mother when it came right down to it. Well, she was her mother’s daughter, wasn’t she?

She was absolutely determined to marry the man of her dreams and I must say—Queen Victoria was even more determined that things would stay just the same. There would be no marriage, the Queen decreed. She simply couldn’t do without her—she would not survive it.

But, as you saw above, the Princess was in her wedding dress and so, did it happen and if so, how the heck did Beatrice pull it off? When I tell you, you won’t believe it. We’ll leave that story for another day. See part 2: “Baby Grows Up” at: http://writerofqueens.blogspot.com

——–

Susan Flanders is the creator of Writer of Queens and Queen Victoria Revealed
Susan has studied Queen Victoria since 1988 and has most of her memoirs, letters and biographies. To Susan, Victoria wasn’t the widow in black, tucked away in a castle, she was much, much more. Visit Susan’s blogs to know more and to read part 2: “Baby Grows Up“.

Portugal was the first country in the 20th century to lose her monarchy, yet the pretender to the Portuguese throne hopes the country will be the first in the 21st century to win back the Monarchy.

Dom Duarte Pio, Duke of Bragança, is confident of re-gaining the throne that was taken away from the Royal House of Bragança in 1910 because recent opinion polls demonstrated that up to 30 percent of the people would not mind having a King instead of a president. This high approval rate for a Crowned Head of State is not just nostalgia, but is to a large extent Dom Duarte’s good reputation as someone who cares about the country and the environment…

Since the 1970s he has advocated organic farming, he is an outspoken critic of the destruction of the landscape in rural areas, where holiday homes replace farm houses. He travels the country and listens to the people, but not as a politician who wants to catch their votes, but as someone who cares. Though the Monarchist People’s Party (Partido Popular Monárquico – PPM) has deputies in the national assembly, the King in waiting keeps his distance even to his most loyal supporters. He knows as King it would be dangerous to be affiliated with a single party. He is above party lines and has supporters in nearly all democratic parties.

On the other hand he formed a non-partisan organisation, the Causa Real, the Royal Cause, which has 10,000 members all over Portugal. Recently the organisation elected a new chairman: Paulo Teixeira Pinto. He had served Portuguese presidents and prime ministers in the last 30 years before quitting politics and becoming secretary general of Portugal’s Central Bank. Then he joined the country’s biggest finance group. After leaving the Millenium Bank he re-organised his personal life and became a solicitor. He seems to be determined to promote the Cause Real to a new level and make it a vehicle for Dom Duarte’s claims to the throne.

Born on 15th May 1945 in Berne/Switzerland, Dom Duarte and his family were banned from entering Portugal until in 1950 the National Assembly repealed the laws of exile. In 1951 Dom Duarte visited Portugal for the first time accompanied by his aunt the Infanta Filippa. In 1952 he moved to Portugal permanently with his parents and his two brothers. From 1957 to 1959 Dom Duarte was enrolled in the Colégio Nuno Álvares in Santo Tirso in Northern Portugal. In 1960 he entered the Military College in Lisbon. He attended the Instituto Superior de Agronomia (now part of the Technical University of Lisbon) where he received a degree in agricultural sciences. Later he attended the Graduate Institute of Development Studies of the University of Geneva.

From 1968 to 1971 Dom Duarte did military service and worked as a helicopter pilot in the Portuguese Air Force in Angola. In 1972 he participated with a multi-ethnic Angolan group in the organization of an independent list of candidates to the National Assembly. This resulted in his expulsion from Angola by order of the then Portuguese Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano.When Dom Duarte married the Portguese noblewoman Isabel de Herédia on 13th May 1995 the country enjoyed the first royal wedding since the marriage of King Dom Luís in 1862. The ceremony, televsed throughout Portugal and other Portuguese speaking countries including Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, was celebrated in the Monarstery of Jerónimos in Lisbon and presided over by the Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal António Ribeiro, and attended by the president of the republic, Mário Soares, the president of the National Assembly, the then prime minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who was elected president of Portugal in January 2006.

The birth of Infante Afonso, Prince of Beira, on 25th March 1996 was the first royal birth since the birth of Dom Manuel II, Portugal’s last King, in 1889. With two more children born in 1997, Infanta Maria Francisca, and Infante Dinis, Duke of Porto, in 1999 the succession is secure and the Portuguese Royal Family will florish in the 21st century, ready to ascend to the throne.

Links:

Official website:
http://www.casareal.co.pt

A Royal Family Video:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5K_VpFaUDwA&feature=related

The Royal Wedding in 1995 (in 18 parts!): http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=N6QI5nDbrpA

————–

Harold Schmautz is a German journalist and monarchist who resides in Melbourne, Australia. Harold supports the work of the Australian Monarchist League and founded the newsgroup “Monarchie der Zukunft” (The Future of the Monarchy).

By Michael Farquhar

Part IX, Chapter 7: Death Be Not Dignified

When a king of France died, he was subject to a fairly rigorous post-mortem. His body was sliced open from throat to hips, after which his internal organs were removed and preserved. This ritual wasn’t so bad. After all, it was part of an old tradition going back to the ancient Egyptians. The procedure took and odd twist with Louis XIV, however. While the hearts of most French kings were placed in gilded urns to rest for eternity, the Sun King’s ended up in the stomach of an English eccentric. Or so the story goes.

Blame it on the French Revolution. Sure, Louis XIV had been dead for decades before the popular uprising even started, but he was royal, and as his descendant Louis XVI discovered on the guillotine, royalty wasn’t going over very well at the time. Even dead royalty. At the Cathedral of St. Denis, an angry mob raided the tomb of the king who had gloriously wallowed in absolute monarchy for more than half a century. They stole his embalmed heart.

The organ was then sold to an English nobleman, Lord Harcourt, who in turn sold it to the dean of Westminster, Rev. William Buckland. When the good dean died, the heart passed by inheritance to his son, Francis Buckland. Frank, as he was called by his friends, was a scientifically minded man, but nevertheless a bit bizarre. He was among the founders of the Society for the Acclimatization of Animals in the United Kingdom, whose goal it was to import and raise exotic animals to increase the national food supply.

For a while Buckland was satisfied devouring kangaroo, ostrich, and the like, but soon his palate became more adventurous. Almost anything organic would do. And here’s where Louis XIV’s heart came in. According to one report, Buckland produced the dried organ at dinner one evening. “I have eaten many strange things in my lifetime,” a startled guest recalled him saying, “but I have never before eaten the heart of a king.”

In a few gulps, the Sun king became a gourmet snack.

Buy It

I was only 6-years-old when I fell in love with Peter Phillips. Like always, I was up to my knees in royal library books (I was a royal-watcher from a very early age!) when I found him in the Windsor family tree.

At that point, my #1 career goal was to be a princess, so when I saw that Peter had been born in 1977, just like me – I knew it was a match made in heaven. Peter was the only eligible male royal on the planet that was my age – and to my 6-year-old self, that made him my true love.

Back then, I had no idea that marrying Peter wouldn’t automatically make me a princess. My precocious young mind was only just learning about the rules of hereditary titles, and it never once occurred to me that as the son of a princess, he wouldn’t be a prince.

Yet Peter was the first royal baby to be born without a title in over 500 years. Little did I know that royal titles only pass through the male line, and since Peter is a descendant of Princess Anne, he was not entitled to become an HRH. (It is widely believed that the Queen offered to make Peter a prince, but Princess Anne declined the proposal, not wanting her children to be unnecessarily burdened. Moreover, Peter did not inherit a courtesy title from his father, because Captain Phillips also declined a title from the Queen upon his marriage to Princess Anne.)

But as I grew older and as my royal crush grew stronger, none of this newfound hereditary knowledge made the slightest bit of difference to me. The heart wants what the heart wants – and my teenybopper heart wanted the Queen’s oldest grandson.

That said, I wonder if by opting not to bestow her children with titles, if Princess Anne actually spared Peter (and his younger sister Zara) from anything. Both Master Peter and Miss Zara will always be “royal” and that is something neither can ever escape. They will always be direct descendents of the monarch, they will always appear in royal family photographs, and they will always have royal-fanatics like me writing about them on royal blogs! I’m not sure life would be any more difficult, or if they would be treated anymore “normally,” if they merely had different prefixes attached to their names.

Look at Diana, Princess of Wales. After her divorce, she was stripped of her HRH, yet as Earl Spencer so aptly observed at her funeral, Diana “needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.”

The same can be said for Charlotte and Andrea Casiraghi. They may be title-less (at their mother’s request) just like Peter and Zara, but these Monegasque beauties still grace the pages of the royal magazines month after month. So does Kate Middleton for that matter – and she doesn’t have a single royal parent to her name!

In this day and age, an HRH is increasingly irrelevant. What matters is one’s proximity to the monarch, one’s place in the line of succession and most importantly, how much the world’s media loves you.

But as Peter has learned, your place in the line of succession can change – or be removed entirely. Back when I found Peter in that library book, he was 7th in line to the British throne. But with the subsequent births of HRH Princess Beatrice, HRH Princess Eugenie, and Lady Louise, Peter has since moved to 10th place in the line of succession. (Please note how Prince Edward also tried to give baby Louise a life of “normality” by removing her HRH.)

When the Countess of Wessex has her next baby, Peter will move to 11th place. But this won’t last for long – for when he marries his Catholic fiancée Autumn Kelly (not only will my heart be broken!) but Peter will have relinquished his succession rights forever. As the Act of Settlement 1701 prohibits anyone who has married a Roman Catholic from succeeding to the throne, only Peter’s children will be able to retain their rights to succession. And after all this “normality,” I wonder if Peter will bother to spare them from the “burden” of an HRH.

Someday My Prince Will Come will be published January 10th.
www.jerramyfine.com

© 2007 Jerramy Fine

Sarah Bradford is once again brilliantly articulate in her writing and is sensitive to Diana’s personal story. Diana wasn’t the nicest person in the world, but Bradford gently reminds us of the Princess’ unhappy childhood and how she became emotionally-stunted. It is a story that arouses deep pity for Diana but makes no apologies for her terrible behavior.

It was Diana’s need to be accepted and loved – things which she felt she lacked in her own family – that drove her to perform her camera-ready acts of kindness. In person, Diana worked her charm to draw people to her, trying to please so that they would like her just as much in turn.

Diana’s friends would tell you that she was a kind woman, but if you told her something she didn’t want to hear, she froze you out for years. She was unforgiving as much as she was needy. Such was the temperamental and complex nature of Diana Spencer.

Bradford also keeps her portrayal of the royal relationship even-handed, but makes an important point that, while Prince Charles was no saint, his reactions to his wife stemmed mostly from the fact that he did not understand her inner problems. Diana’s type of emotional instability was never seen before in the Royal Family. Everyone held their stiff upper lip and gave themselves to the country rather than express their emotions, an act that was viewed as being selfish.

In return, Diana did not understand the ‘Country before self’ mantra of the Royals and reacted by behaving outlandishly.

From the crisis of her parents’ divorce to the chaos of her own marriage, the Princess’ journey to sort herself out was rocky indeed. Sarah Bradford lays bare the painful truth of all that occurred.

Turbulent Beginnings

Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp and heir to the Spencer Earldom, was a jovial man known casually as ‘Johnnie’. In private however, he drank far too much and had a terrible temper to boot.

That temper was not made any better by the fact that he had two children and neither one was a boy. He and his wife Frances had been longing for a son for many years, and the result of the efforts were two daughters instead: Sarah, the eldest, and Jane. Johnnie would fly into a drunken rage and beat Frances, blaming her for not being able to produce the all-important male heir for the Spencer line. To add insult to injury, Johnnie would then send Frances to have humiliating medical exams to try and ‘cure’ her of the inconvenient tendency to have female children.

When Frances finally did give birth to a boy, the baby’s lungs were so underdeveloped that he died. Johnnie was not pleased. With great effort they tried again, and in July of 1961 Diana made her debut.

When Frances delivered Diana, she was disappointed in that she knew she would have to try yet again for a son. Three daughters were not good enough for Viscount Althorp. Diana herself became well aware of the importance of primogeniture within her family, and admitted that she knew she ‘was supposed to be the boy’. Her feelings of inadequacy took root.

Finally, Charles Spencer, their last child, was born. By this point the Spencer marriage was in tatters, and by the time Diana was six years old, Frances left. She began an affair with a married man named Peter Shand Kydd, the heir to a wallpaper company fortune. Diana, now bereft of a mother and taking the brunt of the stress, was left to look after her little brother Charles. Diana’s sisters Sarah and Jane were at boarding school most of this time and mercifully avoided a lot of the acrimony.

Frances would eventually marry Peter Shand Kydd after he divorced his wife. Happily, Shand Kydd proved to be a kind stepfather to Diana and her siblings. That happiness was a ray of light in a chaotic world where Diana felt pulled in opposite directions by both of her parents, who tried to outdo each other for the children’s affections. She already suffered from their tumultuous divorce, and now the subsequent custody battle was to begin.

Both Frances and Johnnie fought long and hard to gain full access to the children. The bids for sympathy began, to which Diana was a witness. She became schooled in the ways of playing on emotions.

Frances sued Johnnie for divorce, an action that earned the rancor of her mother, Lady Ruth Fermoy. Ruth was vicious when it came to cultivating connections with nobility, and her snobbery knew no bounds. She knew what it meant to marry well, and to leave a titled husband for a commoner was abhorrent.

Ruth was of modest birth, and as she grew older she showed a great aptitude for music. She had a promising career as a pianist and may have made a name for herself, but it was a talent that she would willingly set aside to marry Edmund Maurice Roche, the 4th Baron Fermoy. The much older Fermoy was a Conservative Party politician and, most importantly to Ruth, he was titled.

As a mother, Ruth was just as anxious that her daughters marry well. Enter Johnnie Spencer, whose name was even nobler than that of Fermoy. Ruth was quick to orchestrate a meeting between her younger daughter Frances and Johnnie, who would one day become Earl Spencer. It has even been rumored that many years later Ruth, with her friend Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, arranged the marriage between Prince Charles and her granddaughter Diana.

When Frances divorced Johnnie, Ruth was furious and let her voice be heard in testimony against her daughter in the Spencers’ child custody battle. Ruth herself blamed Frances for “bolting” from her family. The testimony was a deciding factor, the Spencer children would be permanently removed from their mother’s custody. The fact that the four would remain with their father in the regal residences of Park House and Althorp Estate pleased Ruth. Frances moved away with Peter Shand Kydd to the Isle of Seil in Scotland.

Diana and Charles were affected the most. The little boy cried endlessly for his mother in the night, and poor Diana didn’t know what to do, wondering if she had caused it all somehow.

What Diana did learn was that familial ties are volatile. Frances never forgave Ruth, and their relationship became non-existant. Later, Diana’s relationship with her mother proved to be almost as brittle.

A few years later, Johnnie would anger his children by courting Raine, Countess of Dartmouth. Unlike Peter Shand Kydd, the still-married Raine incurred the wrath of all of the Spencer offspring.

Like Ruth Fermoy, Raine was a social climber. She was inspired by her mother Barbara Cartland’s flamboyant romantic ideals, and even though she had obtained the title of Countess through her marriage to Gerald Dartmouth, she was never quite happy with it. Earl Spencer was charming and his title was even more so. A marriage to him meant that Raine would be a “Countess”, rather than a “Countess of”. This seemingly insignificant difference to us was of great importance to Raine – it was higher on the social ladder.

Diana never liked her and did her best to ignore her while Sarah, the most fiery and outspoken sister, made a point to tell the press just how unhappy they were over Raine’s intrusion into their lives. Johnnie’s marriage to Raine was viewed as a betrayal to his children, and the relations between five of them would never be the same again. For many years they did not speak to their father.

Several years later in 1992, Johnnie died. His death occurred during Diana’s separation from Prince Charles and their ensuing media battle. She was devastated, but thankfully the Princess had reconciled with him before his passing. The same could not be said for Diana and Frances.

Frances and Diana’s latest quarrel had been about an interview Frances had given to Hello! Magazine in May 1997. Diana accused her mother of disclosing personal details about her and refused to speak to her, returning many of Frances’ letters unopened. This estrangement would be permanent. Diana died a little over three months later in the Paris car crash.

The Ultimate Triumph for the Spencers

The irony is that Diana, the little girl who felt so inadequate, was the one who made the biggest impact in her family as well as on British history. In fact, she had triumphed where the first Lady Diana Spencer (or rather, the powerful Sarah Churchill) had failed.

The first Lady Diana was the daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland. She, too, had a scheming grandmother in the form of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. Diana was pushed to marry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who was the son of King George II. The Prince was indeed willing to marry Diana since the Duchess had provided over 100,000 pounds for her dowry. However, Sir Robert Walpole got wind of this and stepped in to prevent further intrusion into the royal house by Sarah Churchill.

The Diana Spencer of the 1980s married the future king, Prince Charles, and became the Princess of Wales. She was the highest ranked lady in the land aside from the Queen, and even gave birth to two sons in a row, Princes William and Harry. It was a coup for the Spencers and for Diana herself, who was fast becoming a media darling loved the world over.

By this time in her life, though, the Princess was in no emotional state to deal with actual relationships. She suffered over her failure to be the best in Prince Charles’ eyes, and her fractured friendships were being switched on and off as easily as a lightbulb. To feel appreciated, Diana began to live vicariously through the public and the media.

The appearance – or rather, reappearance – of Camilla Parker-Bowles into royal life had made Diana feel betrayed all over again. Prince Charles was hers, just as her father was hers, only this time Diana felt that she was able to fight for him and win. When she couldn’t, she fell apart.

She constantly accused Charles of an affair, and Charles responded to the allegations as ridiculous. Camilla was his friend, nothing more. However, as we heard the Prince admit in his 1996 interview, he did engage in a relationship with Camilla after his marriage to Diana had broken down. In return, Diana did all she could to win the public’s sympathy.

Things began to spiral out of control for the sad Princess, whose vengeful and immature nature overtook her. She couldn’t comprehend how Camilla, who was Charles’ age and actually shared his interests, could be “better” to him. During this time she slept with several different men to get back at Charles. Many of the men were married, and although she knew it was a hurtful thing to do after seeing the results of both of her parents’ affairs, Diana carried on anyway. She succeeded in upsetting the wives of Will Carling, Oliver Hoare, and arousing suspicions in the Mannakee marriage. These activities were brought to light by journalists, and the public became critical of Diana.

Diana became angrier and more suspicious. She began to accuse Charles of having an affair with Alexandra “Tiggy” Legge-Bourke, nanny to their sons William and Harry. She then turned her fire on the innocent Tiggy, who had already irritated Diana by being so close to her sons and referring to them as “my babies”.

It had been alleged that the Princess was so furious with Tiggy that she started a rumor about the nanny being pregnant and subsequently miscarrying. The ‘father’ was named as Prince Charles. At a staff Christmas party, Diana got her chance to accuse and hurt the innocent girl directly. She sidled up beside her imagined rival Tiggy and cooed, “So sorry to hear about the baby,” and slid away. It was an astoundingly cruel and frighteningly premeditated thing to say. Tiggy instructed her lawyers to take action unless the allegations were withdrawn. They were.

The End Draws Near

Tantrums, confusion, and loneliness hounded Diana until the end of her marriage. She then met Dodi Fayed after her divorce and began a passionate affair. He seemed to lavish on her the right amount of attention she needed. Dodi had been engaged at the time of his meeting with Diana, but he callously dumped his fiancée for the princess. Both Dodi and Diana were labeled needy, and seen to be a good fit for one another.

As the summer holiday with the Fayeds ended, Diana and Dodi stopped in Paris to wine and dine, trying to desperately escape paparazzi. As they were leaving the Ritz to return to Dodi’s apartment for the night, they were pursued by photographers on motorbikes. They never made it back to the apartment, and Diana would not see her sons the next day as scheduled. The hectic and controversial life had come to a close.

It was a lonely life that Diana led, highlighted by the elation of being photographed and being charitable to those in need. She inspired the masses, but it was an inspiration founded on desperation, loneliness, and manipulation. Never has a woman been so admired yet so pitied.
written by: Mandy
© 1998-2007 Mandy’s British Royalty
I Rate It: 4 stars (out of 5)