All About Royal Families

Our 3rd. Royal Palace visit took place on January 7th. 2024 in The Hague.  Then we visited the Lange Voorhout Palace and the exhibition "Escher in het Paleis".  Some History The Lange Voorhout Palace in The Hague was designed in 1760 by the architect Pieter de Swart for Anthony Patras (1718-1764), a deputy to the States General of the Netherlands. In 1796 the mansion was bought by Archibald Hope (1747-1821), a manager of the Dutch West India Company.  Archibald was a cousin of Henry Hope and Jan Hope and involved in the family banking business. In 1808 his wife died.  Napoleon and his wife on their travels through the First French Empire used it one night. The inventory was sold in December 1821 and lasted more than two weeks.  The building was bought by Renaud Diederick James de Ginkell, 7th Earl of Athlone (1773–1823), married to a daughter of John Williams Hope. In 1831 the Minister of Foreign Affairs Johan Gijsbert Verstolk van Soelen (1776-1845) moved in. H...

9 February 1846 marks the birth of Prince Leopold of Bavaria. This took place in Munich.  Family Prince Leopold of Bavaria was the son of Prince Regent Luitipold of Bavaria  and Archduchess Auguste Ferdinande of Austria. In the army Prince Leopold entered the Bavarian Army at the age of 15, and received his patent as a lieutenant dated 28 November 1861. He saw first combat during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, where he commanded an artillery battery at Kissingen and Rossbrunn. In 1870, King Ludwig II of Bavaria sent Leopold to the battlefields of France, where the Bavarian Army was fighting alongside the Prussian Army in the Franco-Prussian War. He served with the 3rd Bavarian Artillery Regiment and saw action at Sedan and Beauvert. He was promoted to major in December 1870. For his bravery against the enemy he received both the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Classes, the Bavarian Military Merit Order Knight 1st Class, the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Max Joseph, Bavaria'...

From 3 December 2023 till 7 December 2023, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Belgians made an official State Visit to their neighbours Germany. The royals were invited by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. This was the program: Day 1 Berlin: welcome ceremony by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and First Lady Elke Büdenbender at the Bellevue Palace. Later they went to the Brandenburger Tor, the symbol of German division during the Cold War, the Brandenburg Gate is now a national symbol of peace and unity. Finally that day the German President organised a state banquet.  At the banquet Queen Mathilde wore the tiara, yes bling!, of the 9 Provinces. There were several famous guests too:  * Hubertus, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and his wife Kelly.  * Domenico Tedesco, German-Italian football manager who is currently the head coach of the Belgium national team. * Belgian actor Filip Peeters, who has been expanding his career in Germany since 2000. Da...

When the Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen wrote about Charles Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: "I quite love the young duke, he is the first of all princes that I really find attractive" I wanted to know more about this Duke. Youth Charles Alexander August Johann was born on 24 June 1818 in Weimar. He was the second but eldest surviving son of Karl Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia.  His mother engaged as tutor for Karl the Swiss scholar Frédéric Soret who became a close acquaintance to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Reign On 8 July 1853 his father died, and Charles Alexander became Grand Duke; but he stopped his constitutional accession until Goethe's birthday, on 28 August 1853. Charles Alexander renovated Wartburg Castle, and left his traces in many places in Eisenach.  He was the protector of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, retained the tradition of Weimar's classical period, and gave ...

On April 20th. 2023, I finally got the chance to visit the Royal Greenhouses of Laken (near Brussels). First we passed the Royal Palace of Laken, the family home of King Philippe of the Belgians. In the Royal Park of Laken, the Greenhouses are located.  Dark clouds above the Royal Greenhouses of Laken History The original gardens of the Royal Palace of Laeken date back to the 18th century, but King Leopold II drastically changed their appearance. The king, having visited the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, wanted such a progressive building in his palace's garden, which would combine his love for plants with multifunctional spaces that could also be used as a banquet, theatre and dining halls. He commissioned his architect Alphonse Balat to create a greenhouse. The inauguration took place in 1880, but the complex was also expanded afterwards.  After Balat's death, Leopold called upon the architects Henri Maquet and Charles Girault. The octagonal Palm ...

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...

Recently I bought these stamps of King Felipe of Spain on a market in Madrid. It's a nice royal piece in the collection. But who is King Felipe of Spain?  Birth Felipe was born at Our Lady of Loreto Hospital at Madrid on 30 January 1968, as the third child and only son of Infante Juan Carlos and Princess Sofía of Greece and Denmark. He was baptised on 8 February 1968 at the Palace of Zarzuela by the Archbishop of Madrid, Casimiro Morcillo, with water from the Jordan River.  His full baptismal name is Felipe Juan Pablo Alfonso de Todos los Santos , it consists of the names of the first Bourbon king of Spain (Felipe V), his grandfathers (Infante Juan of Spain and King Paul of Greece), his great-grandfather King Alfonso XIII of Spain, and de Todos los Santos ("of all the Saints") as is customary among the Bourbons.  His godparents were his paternal grandfather Juan and his paternal great-grandmother, Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain. Additionally, he is the third cousin ...