Prince Michael In Bid to Clear King George’s Name

Prince Michael of Kent is to appear in an upcoming TV series about one of history’s – and the monarchy’s – most tragic stories: the murder of the Romanovs.

Prince Michael, a cousin to the Queen, speaks fluent Russian and does a fair amount of business in Russia. His looks are reminiscent of the bearded Tsar Nicholas II, which comes as no surprise – his mother Princess Marina was a descendant of the Romanov clan.

The Russian dynasty was closely entwined with the British royals even before the Prince’s mother, Marina of Greece, married the fourth son of King George V. Tsar Nicholas was a first cousin to King George V himself. Their mothers were sisters, Danish princesses who married into the Russian and British royal families. Princess Dagmar became Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, and Princess Alexandra became Queen Alexandra of Great Britain.

The families were very close, and as World War I toppled monarchies and forced Royal Families to choose sides, King George V was expected to help his cousin. However, the paranoid and bombastic German Kaiser Wilhelm II, cousin to both George and Nicholas, inspired fear and xenophobia of Germans across the globe. Nicholas’ wife, Alexandra, was German, and on top of that she had turned many in the Russian court against her because of her belief in the supernatural and her reliance on the sketchy Rasputin.

Would George give the Tsar asylum and risk his own throne, or leave him to his own devices in Russia? As it turned out, the king’s decision cost his cousin and his family their lives. It’s a decision that Prince Michael now discusses in the television interview.

The program Mystery Files: The Romanovs, airs at 7pm on Thursday, February 11th on National Geographic

With thanks to RoyalBlog.nl, you can see photos of William’s final days in Australia.

Prince William in New Zealand and Australia

Prince William wraps up his tour in the Southern Hemisphere. RoyalBlog.nl gives you the photos you want!

G’Day, Mate! Keeping Up With Wills

GPD © AP

A penny for their thoughts…

Comedy actor and host Miranda Hart has described the Queen and her husband Prince Philip as “that Greek twit and his Kraut wife”.

Hart, along with fellow panelists on the popular show “Have I Got News For You” were talking about the latest gaffe by Prince Philip. At a dinner held in honor of Pratibha Patil’s state visit to Britain, many of the Indian president’s countrymen were in attendance. Philip greeted Indian businessman Atul Patel and said, “There’s a lot of your family here tonight!”

Miss Hart deadpanned: “There is no place for racism in the modern world and the sooner that Greek twit and his Kraut wife realize it, the better.”

Now the BBC is said to be in a “race row”. Again, apparently. I think people just need to relax.

I’m sure you all remember the “bouncy” redhead who was the “breath of fresh air” for the Royal Family. Well, she’s at it again.

Sarah Margaret Ferguson was deemed the perfect match for the Queen’s son, Prince Andrew, whom she married in 1986. Sarah was loved by the Queen and the other members of the family for her eagerness to ride, her enthusiasm for public engagements, and her bawdy jokes.

After a few years the laughter turned to embarrassed coughs and averted eyes. As HRH The Duchess of York, Sarah nabbed freebies, pulled rank, went on extensive holidays, and sent the bill to the Queen for the privilege of it all. She was soon branded the “Duchess of Do Little”, compared unfavorably to the hardworking Princess Anne and the stylish Diana.

A blatant extramarital fling that hit the front pages was the last straw. Sarah soon found herself at a dead end in the Royal family and she had no other recourse but to divorce the Duke. Sarah was banished from Balmoral and stripped of the HRH title, fleeing to America to escape the brutal British media.

Sarah eventually paid back her debts to the Queen in very unconventional ways: she became a spokeswoman, a product developer, and a co-author of various royal-themed books. Sarah earned so much money from endorsements and other ventures that she eventually wiped her debts completely clean.

After years of polishing her image, Sarah was invited back to Balmoral in August 2008. The weekend holiday was intended as a celebration of Princess Beatrice’s birthday. Fergie was finally back in the fold … or so it seemed.

Unfortunately, Sarah did not remain the low-key, responsible woman she was forced to become over those years. She fooled everyone, including the Queen, who is probably now kicking herself for thinking that people change.

The Duchess of York is a title dear to Her Majesty’s heart. Her beloved mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, was the previous Duchess who became the nation’s symbolic backbone during World War II as Queen.

Her Majesty was once little Princess Elizabeth of York, and her sister was Margaret Rose of York. Her father, Prince Albert, referred to their happy little family as “Us Four”. The Queen spent her happiest pre-war days as a York Princess. How it must pain her to see the title squandered in such a manner by the greedy and publicity starved Sarah Ferguson.

I pray endlessly that the title, now portrayed as a symbol of farce and irresponsibility, will be freed from the grasp of this woman.

A Selection of Horrors:

Sarah launched an undercover campaign to highlight the horrific conditions in Turkish orphanages. By doing so, she broke the country’s strict privacy laws and dragged the Royal family into a highly sensitive issue with a foreign nation. While the documentary was a noble feat, she has caused considerable diplomatic tensions between the United Kingdom and Turkey.

Court papers show that Sarah is still not as good with money as previously thought: she owes thousands of pounds to an accountancy firm, a solicitor and a family-run photographic printing company.

Her documentary entitled The Duchess on the Estate has critics panning her for being “patronizing” and “Victorian” in her manner, using other people’s misery to slake her thirst for publicity and making the Manchester housing estate look worse than it is.

Now Sarah admits she might go on the TV shopping network QVC: “Tommy Hilfiger has a line of clothes he wants me to work with but so far the deal hasn’t been set,” she said toCindy Adams of the New York Post.