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The Magna Carta (in English, “The Great Charter”) is the guarantee of English liberty granted by King John at Runnymede on June 15, 1215. Under pressure from his feudal barons, the king was made to sign this document to limit his powers by law.

It essentially stated that the king’s will was not arbitrary, and no one could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today. It laid the groundwork for the United States Constitution.

Below, National Archives conservators discuss the weeks of work spent on the conservation treatment of the Magna Carta, the first phase of a major project leading its re-encasement and public display. This particular document was written on parchment in 1297, one of 17 surviving versions of Magna Carta in the world today.

The full translation of the Magna Carta can be found at the National Archives.

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge landed in Canada yesterday afternoon for the start of their royal tour. They arrived in Ottawa and went to Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General who represents the monarch in Canada.

Whenever I think of Rideau Hall, I think of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Louise and her husband. Louise, the sixth child of Queen Victoria, was the only one of the queen’s daughters to marry a commoner; her husband was John Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne and heir to the Duke of Argyll. He was known in the family as simply “Lorne”. I was first introduced to them in Jerrold Packard’s Victoria’s Daughters. This is their story.

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The witty and beautiful Louise perplexed her mother. She had an independent spirit and didn’t view life through the queen’s somber lens. The princess was also a very talented sculptor and painter. It was not unusual to see Louise walking the grounds of a royal residence with sketch pad and tools in hand. Louise used her stunning mastery of these art forms as leverage to persuade the queen to allow her to attend art school, something royal princesses did not do. The fact that the princess even broached the subject with the monarch showed her resolve to be her own woman and meet people outside the royal circle.

Prince Albert had been an extremely skillful artist as well. He once said that “as an art, sculpting is even more beautiful than painting”. Knowing that her adored husband would probably approve, Victoria’s resolve weakened and she allowed Louise to attend art school.

Continuing on her mission to gain more social experience, Louise begged Victoria to allow her to attend one of the famous breakfast parties held by Prime Minister Gladstone and his wife. The queen gave her consent, and it was at this party she met her future husband.

The young Marquess of Lorne of the Scottish Campbell clan was a very quiet backbencher in the House of Commons. As an MP he made little impression, but Lorne had a creative side. He had a few years of experience traveling throughout North and Central America writing travel literature and poetry. What he lacked in political skills, he made up for with his creative talents. He was also an energetic young man, and his attractive Highland looks appealed to Louise.

Lorne asked Louise to marry him soon after this meeting, and she accepted. They both felt that they could live contentedly with shared interests. Queen Victoria was also happy with the match, knowing that Lorne could infuse new blood into the royal line. ** Read more…

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Thanks to Polyvore, we can even piece together an ideal outfit from the days of Queen Victoria.

Below, the queen’s sixth child, Princess Louise. This stylish, artistic princess was the most independent of all of her sisters. While the other girls were in Europe, married off to princes and dealing with political turmoil, Louise was becoming part of the London social scene and attending art school.

Click the image above to see the fashion set at Polyvore! Created by shoshan.

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An elderly gentleman is looking at you with a curious eye. What you’re saying seems to interest him, but he suddenly blurts out, “We don’t come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves”.

There it is – Prince Philip’s opinion, whether you’re ready or not. You always know where you stand with the Queen’s husband.

Today marks the dazzling Duke’s 90th birthday, and he has shown no sign of slowing down, physically or verbally. This post looks back on the monarchy’s most powerful personality and Britain’s longest-serving consort.

A Son Is Born

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark began life on the small Greek island of Corfu. He was born June 10, 1921 to Prince Andrew of Greece and his wife, Princess Alice of Battenberg. The young prince was the final addition to their family of four children.

Greece was politically unstable throughout the 1920s, and Philip’s uncle, King Constantine I of Greece, was forced to abdicate the throne in 1922. Prince Andrew, the king’s younger brother, was sentenced to death by revolutionaries.

King George V of Great Britain sent Royal Navy ship HMS Calypso to evacuate the Greek Royal Family. He felt immense guilt over the deaths of the Romanovs – his Russian cousin Tsar Nicholas II and his family – after he had denied them asylum in England during the Russian revolution. The king was determined not to make the same mistake. The ship arrived in time to get Prince and Princess Andrew and their children to safety. Baby Philip was carried aboard the vessel in an orange crate.

They lived in exile in France, where Philip’s childhood was darkened by the departure of Prince Andrew to a mistress and Princess Alice to a nervous breakdown. Philip’s sisters, all several years older than he, married and went off to live their own lives. With the breakup of his immediate family, Philip traveled Europe, bouncing from family member to family member. The prince had only battered suitcases, an old suit, his naval uniform, and his father’s shaving kit.

There was no time to dwell upon the negative, however. In his characteristically Philip way, he pushed himself to strive for excellence. He seemed to excel in everything he did, whether it be sport or naval life. His maternal uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, liked what he saw and took the young prince under his wing.

The ambitious Mountbatten, First Sea Lord in the Royal Navy and Viceroy of India, was also intensely interested in his nephew’s marital prospects. When Philip spoke of courting Britain’s Princess Elizabeth, whom he’d first met when King George and Queen Elizabeth toured Dartmouth Naval College, Mountbatten was thrilled.

Becoming English

King George VI was initially hesitant about the blond young foreigner. The king was protective of his two daughters, especially Princess Elizabeth, his heir. His Majesty had already lined up several eligible bachelors – all titled gentlemen, and most importantly, all English. The coarse young Greek prince in his threadbare suit was not in the least a gentleman in the eyes of the king. But Elizabeth, charmed by the thought of a romance with the Viking-esque prince, liked Philip immensely.

There were harumphs all around, except for Queen Mary. She liked Philip immediately. The prince’s bawdy jokes and lighthearted banter endeared him to the elderly queen, who saw Philip for what he was – straightforward, insightful, and clever.

When asked what sort of a son-in-law someone like Philip would make, Queen Mary sharply replied, “Useful”.

The impressively regal queen had once been a princess of Teck, the German principality which her paternal family governed. The Tecks were considered to be minor royals and financially poor relations. When Mary had been proposed as a match for King Edward VII’s heir, Albert Victor (Eddy), she was mocked and teased by Eddy’s sisters. Queen Victoria, however, was extremely impressed by the sensible Mary and deemed her a proper consort. Victoria knew that she would steer the feckless prince away from a life of debauchery.

Eddy died before the marriage could take place, but that didn’t deter the queen. She decided that Mary should become engaged to her other grandson, George. Victoria was entirely confident of Mary’s ability to be an excellent consort, and history has proven her absolutely correct.

Queen Mary, too, was proven correct in her sharp assessment of consorts.

Marriage To England’s Heir

Letters flew back and forth between Elizabeth and Philip during his tenure in the Royal Navy. After World War II came to an end, they quietly got engaged. King George VI eventually relented and gave his consent, but declared that they should delay matters until Elizabeth turned 21 the following year. During the waiting period, Philip had to convert to the Anglican Church of England and relinquish his title as a Prince of Greece and Denmark. The prince relinquished it all and became Philip Mountbatten, the Anglicized version of his Battenberg family name.

On November 20, 1947, Philip and Elizabeth married at Westminster Abbey. Prior to the wedding day, the king conferred upon Philip the titles of The Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich as well as the style of His Royal Highness. When the couple took their vows, Elizabeth officially became known as HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh.

The royal couple enjoyed their time together, spending their honeymoon at Broadlands, Lord Mountbatten’s estate. When Philip was posted on duty in the Royal Navy, Elizabeth would often accompany him. Soon, however, Elizabeth was filling in for her father on official duties more often. The king’s cancer was rapidly spreading, and on top of this he was also suffering from ateriosclerosis.

During Elizabeth and Philip’s official royal tour, King George VI died. The painful news bulletin came through to Philip while they were in Africa, and he was now given the task of informing Elizabeth. When Martin Charteris, then Assistant Private Secretary, went to see her, she was composed. Philip had been the rock she needed to keep going, and Charteris noted that the new Queen was ‘very composed, an absolute master of her fate”. A new chapter had begun for the royal couple.

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Elizabeth by Sarah Bradford
Official Website of the British Monarchy

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Princess Elizabeth takes the salute at her first Trooping the Colour in 1951. The princess had to take the place of her father, King George VI, who was ill.

This year, the Trooping the Colour ceremony will take place on June 11th.

The button earrings, also known as the Devon earrings, were originally a wedding gift to Princess May of Teck (the future Queen Mary). She was the majestic grandmother to the present queen. Queen Elizabeth II wears them quite often, and seem to be her favorite pair. It wouldn’t surprise me as they belonged to her dear “granny”:

Here is the pair I found. I don’t remember where I got them, but they were not expensive at all. They are slightly smaller than the original, but still very classy:

These cute pearl and diamond earrings below are my new favorites. I bought them at JC Penney a few months ago for less than $15. They remind me of the Cluster earrings, part of a suite of jewelry owned by Queen Alexandra:

The originals, part of the Triple Drop Brooch and Necklace Set:

Up Next: A Cool Charlotte Casiraghi Look A fetching black ensemble with matching sandals. Later this month, my next jewelry segment will feature a ring similar to Princess Maxima’s orange diamond engagement ring!

The following is an excerpt from a new book, “An Unusual Journey Through Royal History,” by Victoria Martínez, which features 18 essays on a variety of royal history-related subjects spanning a thousand years. This is the first part of the chapter entitled: An “Illustrated” Royal History.

The last Anglo-Saxon king of England lay dead on a battlefield near Hastings, an arrow through his eye. William the Bastard of Normandy was now William the Conqueror of England.

William’s next, most immediate problem was to positively confirm that the corpse before him did indeed belong to his vanquished rival, Harold II – a task made difficult by the dead man’s disfigured face. The solution came in the shape of Edith Swan Neck, King Harold’s longtime mistress, who identified her dead lover by the words “Edith and England” tattooed on his chest, just one of several such illustrations on his body.

While not all stories of royal tattoos are quite so dramatic, just the concept of “royal tattoos” can seem incongruous to our modern perceptions of royalty. After all, it was only in the late 1990s that Zara Philips, daughter of Britain’s Princess Anne, caused a media sensation simply for having her tongue pierced. Relatively speaking, it should probably come as a far greater surprise that the supposedly prim and proper Victorian era was high season for tattooing among royalty and the aristocracy.

King Edward VII helped pioneer the fashion in Britain when, as Prince of Wales, he had a Jerusalem Cross tattooed on his arm during a visit to Jerusalem in 1862. Twenty years later, his sons – Prince Eddy, the ill-fated heir to the throne, and Prince George, the future George V – both had dragons tattooed on their arms during a visit to Japan. Before returning home, they stopped in Jerusalem to be further illustrated by the same artist who had tattooed their father.

Queen Victoria may or may not have been amused upon learning about her grandsons’ new body art, but their mother, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, reportedly was most certainly not amused when she was told incorrectly that the tattoos were on their faces, not their arms. Despite her undoubted horror at imagining the tattooed faces of her sons, Alexandra probably had nothing against more discreet tattoos, even among the women of her set.

Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), the American heiress, society beauty, and mother of Winston Churchill, circulated quite freely among the Wales’ social circle sporting a tattoo of a snake around her left wrist. A well-placed bracelet hid the tattoo when it didn’t tickle her fancy. Her son Winston followed suit and had an anchor tattooed on his forearm, à la Popeye. Even Alexandra’s sister-in-law, Queen Olga of Greece (1851-1926) – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh’s paternal grandmother – reportedly had a tattoo.

Still more royals outside Britain were getting “inked” around the same time. Another of Queen Victoria’s grandsons, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, had a tattoo, as did George V’s cousin, Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Actually, royal tattoos were common in Russia long before Britain caught on – it seems Peter the Great (1689-1725) and Catherine the Great (1729-1796) both had tattoos.

To read the rest of An “Illustrated” Royal History, download a copy of “An Unusual Journey Through Royal History” by Victoria Martínez, available for Kindle, Nook and other eReaders at the links below (you don’t even need an e-reader since both Kindle and Nook can be downloaded on most devices for free).

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004X7LYPQ
Barnes and Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/An-Unusual-Journey-through-Royal-History/Victoria-Martinez/e/2940012509307
Who Dares Wins Publishing: http://www.whodareswinspublishing.com/UnusualHistory.html