Royalty


Royalty in all shapes and forms

The Massacre’s Surviving Cross

One July night in 1918, Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, their five children and a few servants and loyal companions were murdered, as everyone knows, in the cellar of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. A few days later, the White Army liberated the city from the Bolsheviks. Then began the investigation into the imperial family’s…

A Great-Uncle’s Treasure

The other day, I went to the American hospital for a check-up. I came across Dr Ribadeau-Dumas. I remembered his surname because it was the same as one of my schoolmates as a child. He remembered me because he examined my arteries ten years ago. “You gave me the book about your great-uncle that you…

THE CASTLE OF TREASURE

Alexander was a lawyer at a Swiss bank in Geneva. He was immensely bored of it, as we well understand. One day, he dropped everything and took his family away to a new life. With his initiation, they purchased a large castle in the south of France, in Ariège, in the middle of a little-known…

THE TZAR’S TREASURE

At the beginning of 1917, Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children found themselves left with a handful of loyal servants who refused to abandon them when they were imprisoned in their home at Alexander Palace. Then, in July of that year, the interim government decided to send the Russian Imperial Family…

THE WHITE LADY OF THE HOHENZOLLERN

In July 1857, King Frederick William IV of Prussia and his queen were on their way to the springs of Marienbad when they stopped in Saxony to visit the king and queen who were not only cousins but friends. At that time, the Saxony Court was at the summer residence of Pillnitz Castle where the…

MURDER AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE III

“Sellis’ torso was propped against the back of his bed, his head practically detached from his body. His sheets and nightshirt were bloodied. Precisely as you saw earlier, except he appeared to you standing upright while the footmen found the poor man on his bed. The guard sergeant immediately noticed that an open, bloodied razorblade…

MURDER AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE II

Born in 1771, Prince Ernest Augustus of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Cumberland, was 39 years old. The son of King George III and Queen Charlotte of England, he was, like all the princes of the reigning Hanoverian dynasty, blond, tall, burly, and red-faced. One-eyed, he sheltered his gaze under bushy eyebrows. His beloved,…

MURDER AT ST. JAMES’S PALACE I

It was thanks to Henry VIII that the monarchy settled at St. James’s, where it continues to reside, at least fictitiously, for to this day, the decrees of Queen Elizabeth II bear the words, “Given at our Court of St. James’s”. Over the centuries, Henry VIII’s palace has been reduced, half destroyed by fires, and…

KIZKALESI CASTLE

Many years ago, while travelling along the southern coast of Turkey, I stopped in the ancient village of Silifke, the Seleucia of Antiquity. Across it, in the middle of the sea, stood the towers of an imposing medieval castle that seemed to emerge from the water. Legend has it that in memorial times, be it…

EVRIKLES II

When we last left Evrikles, Emperor Augustus, whom he served well, had rewarded him the island of Kythira as recompense for his efforts, making him the prince of the island. At that time, the territory of Kythira seemed constricting to Evrikles in every sense of the word. There wasn’t much of a future in Kythira…