Many years ago, I stumbled upon the trail of a branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which would have settled down in Bhopal, India. It was hard to find traces, proofs, and yet the story appealed to me. I conducted long researches. If Bourbon they were, they did not belong to the official genealogical tree of…
Edward James is a fascinating character, out of the ordinary. He was born into British aristocracy where he suggested that he could have been the illegitimate child of King Edward VII, of whom we know the many mistresses but to whom we attribute very little bastards. He had the youth of a typical English noble….
One woman became the very picture of romanticism, in this time when so many men, so many women aspired to be romantic. She was not a queen, although she reigned on the desert. Jane Digby was born into English aristocracy. Her father was a lord who possessed a vast castle. She was raised like all…
He was a Secretary of State for the Foreign Affairs in the United Kingdoms. He was one of the most brilliant ministers, one of the most skilled, one of the most efficient, one of the most reliable, but also, out of all the government, the one most prone to drinking. It was because of this…
The one born under the name of Georges I King of England and his wife and first cousin Sophia Dorothea of Celle did not get along well. They had been forced into this arranged marriage and, since the first day they had met, it had been clear that this union was not to be a…
The future kings Edward VII of England and Frederick VIII of Denmark. They were brothers-in-law, Frederick’s sister having married Edward. Princess Dagmar of Denmark. She would later marry the Grand Duke and Russian heir Alexander and become empress of Russia. Vilhelmine Marie, princess of Denmark. She married her first cousin King Frederick VII of Denmark….
Christina of Sweden is a phenomenon that passed through the 17th century stunning all her contemporaries. Born in 1626, only daughter to King Gustav II Adolph, her father passes away when she is six years old. She ascends to the throne under the regency of the remarkable Chancellor Oxenstierna, but she does not get along…
He was a Gascon soldier from the Revolution, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. He had grown up and made his path during this troubled period through the shear strength of his wrists, his wit and his military genius. He had gotten into contact with Bonaparte, but the latter, in some ways, was jealous of him as Bernadotte bested…
The five children of Nicholas II on the deck of the imperial yacht. Visit of Nicholas II and the empress Alexandra to the Grand Duke Konstantin and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna, probably at Pavlovsk. The Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich, scandalous member of the family, with his sister the Grand Duchess Vera Konstantinovna, and his…
One day, someone, I cannot recall who, told me of a distant cousin of mine, a Romanov, who had lived her entire life in Moscow and still lived there. I answered that it was perfectly impossible, that no Romanov could have lived in the Soviet Union at the time of the Soviets, and, worst yet,…