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Showing posts with the label England

The Court of Cambrai, the "Eton of the renaissance"

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After the death of her husband Charles the Bold in 1477, Margaret of York settled her court in Mechelen. Mechelen was the richest city of her widowhood. Later the palace was called the Imperial Court because princes and princesses stayed here, as well as the later Emperor Charles V. 👀  Margaret of York Edward IV, King of England, married his sister Margaret to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. That's a good thing, because he just became a widower.  👉 She also was the sister of King Richard III of England. Eduard also sees value in it, because he has a rich ally against France. Charles has a daughter from his previous marriage: Mary of Burgundy. She was just eleven years old when Margareta became her stepmother. The two get along well. Margaret of York Source picture: Wikipedia 💥 More history 💥 In 1477, the city of Mechelen bought a patrician house along the Keizerstraat from John of Burgundy, Bishop of Kamerijk and prepared the site for expansion by purchasing eight h...

Margaret III, Countess of Flanders

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On 13 April 1350, Margaret III, Countess of Flanders was born near Bruges as the daughter of Louis II, Count of Flanders and Margaret of Brabant.   She was the last surviving child and she became the last Countess of Flanders of the House of Dampierre. Weddings A good marriage was very important. So her father negotiated the future of his daughter well. As heir presumptive to her father's territories, Margaret was a highly coveted bride.  In 1355,Margaret of Flanders married Philip of Rouvres, grandson and heir of Odo IV, Duke of Burgundy.  Philip was Count of Burgundy and Artois (1347–1361), Duke of Burgundy (1350–1361), and became Count of Auvergne and Boulogne (1360–1361). We don't know if it was a happy marriage or not, but at least she married at a very young age! Following Philip's death from a riding accident in 1361, Margaret was widowed and had no issue by him.  King John II of France then claimed the Duchy of Burgundy for the kingdo...

Eleanor of Aquitaine

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This is a blog post at a special request. Eleonor of Aquitaine was perhaps the most famous queen in the Middle Ages.  But who was she?  On 1 April 1204 at the age of about 82, Eleanor of Aquitaine died at Poitiers. Who was Eleanor of Aquitaine? Family Eleanor's year of birth is not known precisely: a late 13th-century genealogy of her family listing her as 13 years old in the spring of 1137 provides the best evidence that Eleanor was perhaps born as late as 1124. Eleanor (or Aliénor) was the oldest of three children of William X, Duke of Aquitaine, whose glittering ducal court was renowned in early 12th-century Europe, and his wife, Aenor de Châtellerault, the daughter of Aimery I, Viscount of Châtellerault, and Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard, who was William IX's longtime mistress as well as Eleanor's maternal grandmother. Her parents' marriage had been arranged by Dangereuse with her paternal grandfather William IX. Her family were members of the House of Ramnulfid...

The amazing Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara

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Elizabeth II's first tiara was a wedding present in 1947 from her grandmother, Queen Mary , who received it as a gift from the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland in 1893 on the occasion of her marriage to the Duke of York, later George V. Made by E. Wolfe & Co., it was purchased from Garrard & Co. by a committee organised by Lady Eve Greville. In 1914, Mary adapted the tiara to take 13 diamonds in place of the large oriental pearls surmounting the tiara. Leslie Field, author of The Queen's Jewels, described it as, "a festoon-and-scroll with nine large oriental pearls on diamond spikes and set on a base of alternate round and lozenge collets between two plain bands of diamonds".  At first, Elizabeth wore the tiara without its base and pearls but the base was reattached in 1969.  The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara is one of Elizabeth's most recognisable pieces of jewellery due to its widespread appearance in portraits of the monarch on British bank...

PlatinumJubilee Celebrations in London

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In 2022, Her Majesty The Queen will become the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee after 70 years of service. own picture taken in London in 2016 Get involved in celebrating Her Majesty’s historic reign in the run up to the Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend which takes place from 2nd to 5th June. On June 2nd the Trooping of the Colour will take place .  1st Battalion Irish Guards will Troop their Colour in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen on Thursday 2nd June 2022. Taking part will be up to : - 1500 soldiers of the Household Division and The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery; -  400 musicians from the Massed Bands; - 200 horses; - 70 aircraft.  The ceremony of Trooping the Colour is believed to have been first performed  during the reign of King Charles II (1660-1685). In 1748 it was decided that  this parade would be used to mark the official birthday of The Sovereign. It became and annual event after George III became King in 1760...

Royal bling: The Vladimir Tiara

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Royal jewelry and especially tiara's mostly have a wonderful and sometimes surprising history. In this blogpost we take a closer look to the Vladimir Tiara . The Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara, sometimes the Diamond and Pearl Tiara, was bought, along with a diamond rivière, by Queen Mary from Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, mother of the Duchess of Kent, in 1921 for a price of £28,000.  Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna and her mother Source picture: Wikipedia The grand duchess, known after her marriage as Princess Nicholas of Greece, inherited it from her mother, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who received it as a wedding gift from her husband in 1874. It originally had 15 large drop pearls, and was made by the jeweller Carl Edvard Bolin at a cost of 48,200 rubles. Princess Mary of Teck wearing the Vladimir Tiara. More about Princess Mary of Teck on this link . Source picture: Wikipedia During the Russian Revolution in 1917, the tiara was hidden with other jewels som...

26 May 1867: Princess Mary of Teck

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Princess Victoria Mary ("May") of Teck was born on 26 May 1867 at Kensington Palace, London, in the same room where Queen Victoria, the cousin of her mother , had been born 48 years and 2 days earlier. Queen Victoria came to visit the baby, writing that she was "a very fine one, with pretty little features and a quantity of hair". Family Her father was Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, the son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg by his morganatic wife, Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (created Countess von Hohenstein in the Austrian Empire).  Her mother was Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III and the third child and younger daughter of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel. Baptize She was baptised in the Chapel Royal of Kensington Palace on 27 July 1867 by Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury.   From an early age, she was known to her family, friends and the public ...