In honor of the impending nuptials, Silva Screen Records, Ltd. has released a sensational CD of music entitled Music For A Royal Wedding.

The triumphant trumpets of Fanfare For A Festive Occasion ushers us into a world of pomp and circumstance. Pie Jesu is both haunting and uplifting. Helena Blackman’s rendition of I Vow To Thee My Country, already touching and heartfelt, will move you even more and bring you to tears.

No wedding music selection would be complete without Richard Wagner’s classic Lohengrin Bridal March. Other highlights include Lesley Garrett’s delicate reading of Lakmé’s The Flower Duet, William Walton’s stirring music for Henry V and Craig Armstrong’s tender Balcony Scene from Romeo & Juliet.

The complete list of music, below, for you to enjoy and celebrate along with William and Kate!

1. FANFARE FOR A FESTIVE OCCASION

2. ELSA’S PROCESSION TO THE CATHEDRAL FROM LOHENGRIN

3. NIMROD

4. PIE JESU

5. BRIDAL MARCH FROM LOHENGRIN

6. POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE MARCH NO. 4

7. OVERTURE/THE GLOBE THEATRE FROM HENRY V

8. TOCCATA 5TH SYMPHONY

9. SOUS LE DÔME ÉPAIS (THE FLOWER DUET)

10. CROWN IMPERIAL

11. FOR THE LOVE OF A PRINCESS

12. CANON IN D MAJOR

13. THE BALCONY SCENE FROM WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO + JULIET

14. WEDDING MARCH FROM FROM A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM

15. I VOW TO THEE MY COUNTRY

16. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

Up next: Music for a Royal Wedding and Royal Weddings: A Very Peculiar History

You don’t want to miss these reviews. Wedding fever continues!

The King was now overgrown with corpulency  and fatness. – Edward Hall

Ah, King Henry VIII! The monarch had once been an attractive, strapping young man. As he got older, he got crankier, fatter, and more dangerous. Just ask his wives.

Washington Post editor and history buff Michael Farquhar returns with another witty and meticulously researched book about the dirty linen of powerful people – namely, royalty. In his previous book, “A Treasury of Royal Scandals”, Farquhar includes the crowned heads of Europe but now devotes his new work entirely to the most colorful – and often reprehensible – characters within the British monarchy itself.

“Behind the Palace Doors: Five Centuries of Sex, Adventure, Vice, Treachery, and Folly from Royal Britain” is a veritable circus of debauchery and bad luck, striking pale the antics of today’s royals by comparison.

Husband and wife monarchs William III and Mary II ruled together after James II (Mary’s father) was ousted from England. Angry at his expulsion, he plotted to regain the throne by killing his own daughter and son-in-law.

“I was told of dreadful designs against me [by James' supporters, known as Jacobites]“, she wrote, “and had reason to believe if their success answered their expectations, my life was certainly at an end.”

It makes Fergie’s antics look a bit weak in comparison, doesn’t it?

Farquhar is known for his previous works on the tomfoolery of historic hedonists. They are filled with his trademark wit and shrewd observations, and his new “Behind Palace Doors” carries on this exquisite tradition. Farquhar’s deft and sophisticated pen makes otherwise heinous royal folly fascinating and fun.

We move from Henry VIII to his offspring, then down through the ages into the Hanoverian reign. We conclude with the Houses of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Windsor. Farquhar brings it all to a close on a good note with Elizabeth II, but not before comparing her dutiful father, King George VI, to his listless and selfish elder brother, the Duke of Windsor.

One thing surprised me, however: while Farquhar notes that the King stammered and had to overcome painful shyness, there is no mention of Lionel Logue within the chapter. It did teach me something new, and that is the credit due to BBC engineer Robert Wood for helping the king train to become a better broadcaster with the latest equipment.

Three cheers to a fabulous book, and an all-around excellent history series. Go forth and purchase all of them today!

Other books by Michael Farquhar:

Mark Hichens’s book, Queens and Empresses: From Cleopatra to Queen Victoria, is a fascinating look at the lives of reigning women throughout the world.

The book comes at an appropriate moment in royal history: the debate over the change in succession laws in the United Kingdom. Can a woman rule just as well as a man? Should she?

The queens’ lives and times span the globe. All are living in times of male domination, but within that they have their own dramas and struggles for power. Some are scheming; some are incompetent and vulnerable; some are respectable and august.

There are both familiar and not so familiar faces in Queens and Empresses. It is a treat to learn about the women with whom you may be unfamiliar. We all know Elizabeth I, but what about Maria Teresa, Queen of Hungary and Archduchess of Austria? The statesmen around her were of no use, and she herself lacked political experience. Yet Maria’s intelligence and sturdy backbone saw her through, and she reigned for 40 years.

The book also covers a large span of history, beginning with the reign of Cleopatra of Egypt and ending with the famous Queen Victoria. The breadth of history covered in the book may seem overwhelming, but once you begin to read you find that it is at once informative and engaging. It is written clearly without overpowering.

After reading Queens and Empresses, I guarantee that it will prompt you to investigate further into the lives of those Queens you may not have known as well as the others. In my case, I did not know much about Catherine de Medici nor Maria Theresa of Austria, but Hichens’ coverage has interested me so much that I am inspired to read more about them.

I bet you’ll do the same!

© 2011 M.L. Littlefield

Also by Mark Hichens:

West Downs: A Portrait of an English Preparatory School

The Troubled Century: British and World History, 1914-1993

The Inimitable P. G. Wodehouse: The Story of His Life and A Treasury of His Wit

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Richard Sotnick is a man on a mission. Curious about the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family (from which the House of Windsor derives), Sotnick decided to thoroughly research them after a fateful meeting with Lord Mountbatten.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, an Admiral of the Fleet and the last Viceroy of India, met the author during a formal dinner in 1979. Discussing his family history, Mountbatten said pointedly, “You have to remember that, in my youth, European affairs were family business.”

Lord Louis was correct, of course. His sister Louise became Queen of Sweden, and other relations included monarchs of Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Romanov Russia. His nephew, Prince Philip, became the consort of Britain’s future Queen Elizabeth II.

Intrigued, Sotnick decided to trace the roots of Europe’s – and especially Britain’s – reigning houses. They all had one thing in common: all were branches of the Coburg family.

To better understand the Coburgs and the society in which they lived, Sotnick learned how to read and translate the Gothic German script in which the family’s letters and diaries were written in the nineteenth century. That research has culminated in “The Coburg Conspiracy”.

This book lays bare the marriage machinations within the Coburg dynasty that eventually launched the union of their Prince Albert to Britain’s Queen Victoria. Controversially, Sotnick questions and confronts rumours surrounding Albert’s paternity, the lifestyle of his charismatic uncle Leopold, and the indifference of his father, Ernst.

It was widely known that Victoria was a deft matchmaker for her own children, but Sotnick wanted to know who arranged the meeting between the Queen and Albert that made the tiny Duchy of Coburg the paterfamilias of power and influence. Thanks to Sotnick’s impressive and tirelessly researched book, we now know much more about the history of the world’s royal roots.

Purchased at Amazon.com for $26. Click here for your copy!

Coming soon: The Coburg Conspiracy: Victoria and Albert – Royal Plots and Manoeuvres

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the Duchy of Coburg, ruled by the Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield (later Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) family, was a small, impoverished German fiefdom with no political influence, and little prospect of improving its lot. Less than fifty years later, the family had transformed its position. Just how did they achieve this astonishing turnaround?

With Queen Victoria’s marriage to the Duchy’s Prince Albert, the formerly insignificant dukedom became intrinsically linked with the most powerful empire on earth. Victoria and Albert’s children were matched by Queen and Prince to the most eligible and politically viable royals throughout Europe. But who orchestrated Victoria and Albert’s marriage? Did those responsible realize what a royal powerhouse their matchingmaking would create?

Author Richard Sotnick was inspired to discover just that after a 1975 meeting with Lord Mountbatten. Sotnick studied German at the Goethe Institute and with a personal tutor so that he could understand crucial documents for his research for ‘The Coburg Conspiracy’. He will see the culmination of his work published May 20th.

Majesty Magazine says: ‘A fascinating, riveting tale based on ground-breaking research’.

Sarah Bradford, noted biographer of Queen Elizabeth II, writes: ‘Richard Sotnick’s book is an important addition to Victorian studies: illuminating the darker side of Prince Albert’s impoverished and ambitious family which Queen Victoria regarded as her own with the tragic tale of his rejected mother and the sexual intrigues of the Coburg court. Deploying new material from the Coburg archives, Sotnick convincingly explores the evidence for and against Albert’s illegitimacy. A fascinating book.’

Join me here for my review in May or early June.

“The Coburg Conspiracy” will also be reviewed by… http://ow.ly/1wJ8R