William and Kate and Diana's Ring

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Then more,
"Rose Kennedy reacted with maternal protectiveness when daughter Kathleen (known as “Kick”) fell deeply in love with Billy, Marquess of Hartington. He was a Protestant, English lord. Everything about him was alien to Rose—particularly the traditional, aristocratic beliefs that ordered his life. These were so deep-rooted that they seemed to block the possibility of his marrying Catholic Kick, even though he adored her. In such a context, Billy struggled to see how he could set religious principles to one side purely for his own marital pleasure. “I wonder if the next generation will feel that it is worth sacrificing a life’s happiness for all the old family tradition,” Rose wrote, sympathetic to Kick’s ordeal. “So much wealth, titles, etc. seem to be disappearing. But I understand perfectly the terrific responsibilities and disappointment of it all.”

Within months of receiving her mother’s letter, Kick had married this pre-eminent English aristocrat, heir to the Duke of Devonshire and the Chatsworth estate. It was the briefest of unions—after just four months Billy was killed in action, during the liberation of Belgium. Kick mourned him for four years before running away with the dashing, womanizing (and married) Peter, Earl of Fitzwilliam, owner of England’s largest private home, the 365-room Wentworth House: it had 1,000 windows, and its park wall ran for nine miles. Flying to Paris, in the optimistic hope of having her father approve marriage to her secret, Protestant lover, Kick dropped from stormy skies over France in a fatal plane crash—a precursor to Kennedy tragedies and scandals to come.
At the time, the British aristocracy as a whole was a battered institution, hardly recognizable as the all-powerful caste that had overseen an empire that spanned a quarter of the globe’s surface; this was the period when Evelyn Waugh wrote Brideshead Revisited, as an elegy to the nobility and its ancestral mansions. However, the senior aristocracy still had money and glamour—Peter Fitzwilliam’s grandfather had died one of the richest men in England, with a $21 billion fortune in today’s values, largely because his family’s 20,000 agricultural acres were found to cover one of the nation’s richest coal seams.
Kick, meanwhile, was one of the most attractive and desirable women in London—not conventionally good-looking, but blessed with a firecracker personality. If it was surprising that old Joe Kennedy’s daughter ended up a marchioness, with plans to marry again and become a countess (Joe was contemptuous of Britain and repeatedly predicted its defeat by Nazi Germany in World WarII), it was startling that her fresh and inquiring New World mind accepted the ancient aristocratic code that only a few in Britain understood, and even fewer subscribed to.
Son at the Center of the Universe
It used to be pretty simple, being a British aristocrat. A way of living developed in the years of plenty. These began in the primitive, dog-eat-dog frenzy of Henry VIII’s Tudor court (his superfluous Queens were just 2 of as many as 72,000 who lost their heads during his reign) and progressed to the languid, be-plumed pomp of Queen Victoria’s heyday.
There were blips along the way, of course: wars—even a civil war, followed by an unhappy, yet-to-be-repeated experiment with republicanism—as well as occasional economic turmoil and choking plagues on a national level. On an individual basis, there was financial incompetence, premature death from illness or on the battlefield, and just plain bad luck. However, many aristocratic families weathered the turbulence. Those that did not disappeared but were quickly replaced. The most successful dynasties were those that read the code, accepted its terms, and fused it into their DNA.
As the holder of one of the grand, hereditary titles of Britain, you merely had to do what was expected of you and then die. Succeed and grateful servants and tenants would mourn you, while even more grateful descendants would celebrate your brief flowering at the head of the family tree. You could expect, as a mark of eternal gratitude, a carved tomb in the ancestral mausoleum.
This was the upper-class representation of what Edmund Burke, the 18th-century philosopher, described as the social contract, “a partnership, not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those that are yet to be born.” This was the aristocratic code of conduct. It was still alive in 1929, when Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, owner of one of southern England’s great estates, chose as his epitaph “He loved Beaulieu, deeming his possession of it a sacred trust to be handed on to his successors in a like manner.” His successor echoed this sentiment 45 years later: “We belong to our possessions, rather than our possessions belong to us. To us, they are not wealth, but heirlooms, over which we have a sacred trust.” This remains the mission statement of traditional aristocratic families today.
So, what was the nobleman expected to do to have his life deemed a success? Ideally, he would marry “well,” which meant blending his bloodline with that of another great family, or one of less impressive pedigree but vast wealth.
He would play an enormous role in the life of his country, and would be in the select pool of several dozen families that dominated the royal court and politics, for generation after generation. (Leadership in the church or the armed services was reserved for his younger brothers.)
He would preside over the agricultural estate that stood as the cornerstone of all. The great Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope gave one of his characters the line “Land gives so much more than the rent. It gives position and influence and political power, to say nothing about the game.” This had been a truism for centuries: the ownership of land provided the great magnates with massive incomes, which funded their lifestyles and underpinned their ability to demand high office.
He would have added to the family’s art collection, his taste hopefully nurtured and refined by “the grand tour”—the exploration of Continental Europe (especially Italy and France) that young aristocrats were sent on from the mid-17th century.
He would entertain generously. This was a serious business, a duty, which would result in disgrace and derision if inadequately performed. There were two main settings for this: the country mansion (where winter was dominated by hunting with hounds and the shooting of game birds) and the London palace (where unmarried daughters were matched with eligible bachelors).
Central to this existence was a belief in, and an unquestioning adherence to, primogeniture. A few Scottish titles could pass through daughters, but nearly all the English ones devolved to the eldest son, or to the senior male heir if there was no son. With the titles went the estate—estates were “entailed,” which meant they and the family’s primary hereditary title could not be separated, even if the heir had less shining qualities than another son. Disentailment was the last resort, to take place only when the estate would inevitably be squandered by an heir who was either an out-of-control addict or insane.
The head of the family would arrange dowries for his daughters when they married, and he might give some capital to the younger sons. However, in order to keep the family’s wealth centralized and alive, preferably in perpetuity, he relied on a system that was as logically practical as it was ruthlessly clinical. One head of a very substantial aristocratic family says of primogeniture, “This is the only way of keeping estates or collections together, other than gifting to a charity. However, it can often cause feelings of guilt for the heir, or jealousy for the other children.”
Primogeniture persists in many old British families today, although not without question. Soon after he succeeded his father, in 1990, David, the Seventh Marquess of Cholmondeley, sold some family heirlooms, including a Holbein to the National Gallery, with the express purpose of providing for his sisters and other family members."

in the photo, 'The author’s parents, Earl Spencer and his first wife, Frances Shand Kydd, at the 1978 wedding of their daughter Lady Jane, with, at left, the author’s stepmother, Raine, and eldest sister, Lady Sarah, and, at right, grandmother Ruth, Lady Fermoy. From Popperfoto/Getty Images.'

 

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Cont....."
The late Earl of Lonsdale, who inherited 90,000 acres in northern England in 1953, divided the estate among his sons (he had eight children from four marriages). The eldest, Hugh, retains the most solid part, held for him and his heirs in trust. Meanwhile, Jim, his son from his third marriage, whose mother was from Pacific Palisades, California, was given those sections of the estate that had the most scope for what his father recognized as Jim’s entrepreneurial flair.
Sometimes, the male heir’s values are simply too at odds with those of the father to allow a smooth transition between generations. Jasper Orlando Slingsby Duncombe, whose family owns Duncombe Park, a 150-room Queen Anne mansion in Yorkshire, is the oldest son of the Sixth Baron Feversham. Eighteen years ago, Jasper was sentenced to three years in jail for holding up the Corner Spy Shop in Bayswater while wearing a false mustache. He later joined the dot-com boom, setting up Relishxxx.com, which provided pornography to (among others) the National Health Service, to inspire donors contributing to its sperm-bank reserves. The sixth baron was clearly unimpressed by such altruism. Upon his death, in March 2009, he bequeathed that his second son, Jake, should be allowed to occupy Duncombe Park, not Jasper, who became the Seventh Baron Feversham. Apparently, this came as no great surprise.
Less Stately Mansions
What is left of the British aristocracy today is, with a handful of exceptions, a mere echo of what many successive generations saw as the fabulously wealthy, intensely powerful, outrageously glamorous class that rose with the British Empire but hit the rocks a generation before imperial disintegration.
There were repeated hammer blows, with the British aristocracy forced to morph and contract from its final peak, in the late 1870s. Then 80 percent of the country’s acreage was owned by 7,000 families, principally those of the 431 hereditary members of the House of Lords—the dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons of the United Kingdom. Beginning in the 1880s, the export of grain from the Americas, followed by the arrival in Europe of refrigerated meat, halved agricultural income in Britain. What had been the lifeblood of the great estates for hundreds of years was cut off suddenly, and unexpectedly, with devastating effect, in both the short and the long term: agricultural rents were the same in 1936 as they had been in 1800.
In a grim pincer movement, taxation increased at the same time. Death duties were introduced in 1894 at 8 percent. By 1939 these had reached 60 percent. In 1948 they were levied at 75 percent on estates worth more than £1 million (an equivalent, at the time, of $4 million). Socialist leaders had no time for deference, and they ridiculed the dukes and lords, who were viewed with hatred as withering as that recently reserved for the most venal hedge-fund managers.
When the First World War arrived, in 1914, the aristocracy welcomed it. They saw this as a chance to justify their position, by assuming the mantle of military leadership that had been the original role of many of their ancestors. But the war was disastrous for them: frequently, the young lords were given junior commissions on the battlefront, leading their men with bravery in their hearts but only a pistol or a baton in their hands. They were first in the German machine-gunners’ sights. While one in eight British soldiers perished during the four-year conflict, the ratio was one in five for the nobility (including the Second Baron Feversham, ancestor of the pornographer Jasper Duncombe). After peace, it seemed that the aristocracy was spent. As a political observer wrote at the time, “The Feudal System vanished in blood and fire, and the landed classes were consumed.”
The British aristocracy drew in its horns. The most prominent families sold around seven million acres, or a quarter of England itself, in the years on either side of the war’s conclusion. During the years between the World Wars, roughly 230 mansions were destroyed. One of them, Sudbrooke Holme, was bought by an American film company, which used the building’s incineration as an action sequence in one of its movies.
America’s Got Talent
Americans had been benefiting from the demise of the British aristocracy ever since grain exports had helped to bring the lords to their knees. From 1880 onward, swaths of private British art collections were packed off for new homes in Manhattan and Newport, Rhode Island.
In return, British aristocrats actively sought out wealthy American brides. Consuelo Vanderbilt was contracted to bring a $2.5 million ($66 million today) dowry when she reluctantly married the Ninth Duke of Marlborough. In 1895, nine American heiresses married titled British men. Three years prior to that, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had noted the trend, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: “One by one the management of the noble houses of Great Britain is passing into the hands of our fair cousins from across the Atlantic,” he wrote. Between 1870 and the First World War, 100—1 in 10—aristocratic marriages were contracted with Americans.
The United States advanced into English society on a variety of fronts. Nancy Astor, a divorcée from Virginia, competed with the flamboyant, gay “Chips” Channon, a native of Chicago, and Elsa Maxwell, from Iowa, to be queen bee of London society: Elsa was the first person to be nicknamed “the hostess with the mostest.”
With American wives came American ways. The British aristocracy had long avoided divorce—indeed, between 1669 and 1850, only 229 divorces had been granted in England, to anyone, such was the power of Anglican ecclesiastical courts—but it had become relatively commonplace in the United States. The U.S. census for 1867 to 1871 reveals there were 53,574 divorces during that period. By the period between 1887 and 1891, that figure had nearly tripled. There were 167,105 American divorces in the single year of 1920.
The most controversial wifely import from America, Baltimore’s Wallis Simpson, was, famously, a double divorcée. After her love affair with King Edward VIII cost him his crown and resulted in his demotion to the Duke of Windsor, Lord Crawford blamed the American crowd that surrounded her for the abdication debacle. He raged against “all the touts and toadies who revolved around Mrs Simpson, and whose influence upon society was so corrupting.”
The Duke of Windsor had long been entranced by America—it was said that “New York was his undoing”—and Chips Channon noted in his diary on May 14, 1935, “His voice is more American than ever.” But it was her womenfolk that had a particular hold over Edward. His previous lover had been an American divorcée on her second marriage: Thelma Morgan, an aunt of Gloria Vanderbilt’s.
Pink Is the New Mahogany
My father, who was a godson of the Duke of Windsor’s, married for the second time in 1976. Relations with Raine (daughter of romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, an explosion of ruffled pink dresses topped with a face of chalk-white powder) were difficult on a personal level: she was not somebody who appeared to enjoy maternity much, so the famously difficult art of stepmothering was unlikely to be her forte. Besides our reservations about her character, we four children were soon alarmed by our stepmother’s cavalier way with much-treasured family objects.
During her time at Althorp, she treated the chattels as her own, to be disposed of discreetly via a network of Bond Street dealers, for reasons that did not seem to benefit the fabric of the house or the wider estate. The house had been ours since 1508, and the collection reflected the varying tastes of 17 previous generations of Spencers, none of whom had divorced. There had been second and third wives, because of early deaths, but they had not been allowed to break the aristocratic code. The earl of the day had seen to it that his senior male relative inherited as much as possible, once an addiction to book buying in one generation and a passion for foxhunting in another had been accepted as expensive aberrations."
then the photo,'The author at three, being pushed by his sister the future Princess Diana, at Sandringham, 1967. From Hulton Archive/Getty Images.'

 

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cont some more! ..."
Raine operated on a covert level, with sales achieved quietly, to avoid press interest, but with the consequence that the full, open-market price of the objects could not be obtained. Four individual portraits of Christ’s apostles by Van Dyck went for a song. Stubbs’s glorious The Duchess of Marlborough’s Dogs suddenly joined the huge list of missing chattels, which included nearly every religious painting in the 750-work collection. Even the Victorian Patchwork Room was dismantled and disposed of.
This was one of the quirkier corners of Althorp: a four-poster-bed room on the first floor, in which a brother-in-law of a 19th-century Countess Spencer had died of smallpox. All the room’s fabrics were burned, and the Countess and her sisters set about composing colorful patchwork quilts, curtains, and cushion covers; even the glazed fire screen contained a patchwork pattern, and the china in the room continued the busy, kaleidoscopic theme. All the fabrics were thrown out by Raine. They were not worth selling. They were replaced with an electric-green velveteen flocked wallpaper that was an original choice for such a room, but probably not an inspired one.
It is hard to blame Raine. She was just one of many second or third wives of British stately-home owners who see themselves and their surrounding estates as repositories of gratifyingly valuable objects, whose worth might be better deployed elsewhere. In her case, she championed increasingly dizzying decorative displays around Althorp (the South Drawing Room, for generations a model of handsome English reserve, became a cacophony of clashing pinks—pink silk walls, pink silk curtains, pink French rug, pink sofas, plump pink cushions; it was as if the room had been ablush at the sickliness of it all). The divestiture of hundreds of heirlooms paid for a wardrobe of several hundred couture dresses, the acquisition of a large mansion in Mayfair, and further real estate in the surprising form of Trade Winds and Hacienda, her mock-Hispanic villas in the staid coastal town of Bognor Regis, where my father was allowed to potter around in the vegetable garden.
My father had suffered a massive stroke in 1978, and Raine had helped save his life then. When he died, in 1992, my stepmother and I were forced to endure a testing tour round Althorp, with Raine putting stationer’s sticky red spots on all the chattels that she was claiming and that she wanted instantly removed from the house. At the end of this grim procession, Raine handed me volumes enumerating the contents of the house as they had been itemized following my grandfather’s death, 17 years earlier. “You’ll find a lot of these are missing,” she volunteered, matter-of-factly, “but you still have more than most.”
A Man’s Castle Isn’t His Home
As Colin Campbell, the new Earl of Cawdor, left the lawyer’s office, in the summer of 1993, after his father’s sudden death, he turned to his stepmother and asked, “Why didn’t Pa tell me?” She replied, “You never asked.”
Colin had just discovered that his father, Hugh, had secretly disentailed him, seven years earlier. Hugh had left the family’s Cawdor Castle, immortalized in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and much of the 58,000-acre estate, to Angelika, his tall, marble-skinned, auburn-haired second wife, whose attractions the five Campbell children had long found hard to understand. As Lady Liza Campbell, Colin’s author sister, revealed in her riveting autobiography, A Charmed Life, her father had broken the code that had bound the head of their family to their castle, that fist of stone that had been theirs since the 14th century: “Hugh had neither earned nor bought Cawdor. It had taken no talent to receive all this extraordinary privilege other than being born the correct sex. These possessions were entrusted to his care, but Cawdor was not his. Not only had he shafted his own son in the will rewrite, he had shafted the previous twenty-four generations. This stony treasure had survived six hundred years of wild Scottish history, including a crucial battle fought on its doorstep, yet it took only one drunken rake to piss it away.”
As one sits with Liza three years after her book appeared, it is clear that the bewilderment at her brother’s disentailment has not dissipated: “In some cases, there is an emergency, where the son is stupid, or has unaddressed addictions, and things may therefore be quickly destroyed. But, in my family, the son was a rather more upright figure than his father.” Colin is a trained architect, who spent time working in New York.
Liza sees her father’s responsibilities as clear-cut and not open to question: “You are born into immense privilege, and it’s not your personal entitlement. You’re a custodian. The understanding is you pass it on—with any luck, in slightly better fettle than you found it. With the unfairness of primogeniture, the deal is you perpetuate it.” She is torn between daughterly love for a dashing and able father and contempt for his glaring flaws: “He was very intelligent, but he behaved in an emotionally moronic way.” The Campbell children were asked to write letters of thanks to Angelika, for having them to stay in their own home. More destructively, on one occasion he canceled the family’s traditional New Year’s celebrations at the last minute. It was only later that they discovered this was so he could slip away to marry Angelika. This was a particular surprise for them all, Liza recalls, as their father was seeing three other women at the time.
Although Cawdor was where Liza spent much of her childhood, since her father’s death she has returned there only as a member of the paying public. “It’s no longer a family home,” she says. “It’s a place that makes you sad.” Despite this, she is not prepared to talk about her stepmother directly, though when she says, “A beautiful woman is not necessarily a beautiful person,” it is in the wake of our conversation about her stepmother’s physical attributes at the time she snared her father.
Liza is evenhanded about where the blame lies when second or third wives run amok with the family inheritance. “Behind every powerful stepmother who walks away with everything is a weak man,” she says. “We can demonize the women, but … “
She rejected the life of privilege that was open to her as the beautiful daughter of a wealthy aristocrat and married a big-game fisherman in Africa. There, she lived in the shade of a tree for two years. Long since divorced, Liza lives quietly with her two teenage children in an unfashionable part of London. “Possessions are such a burden,” she says. “I long for less.”
Uncluttered by materialism, Lady Liza Campbell has a uniquely clear viewpoint from which to spot those who are on the make: “In an old-fashioned way,” she concludes, “for a girl who doesn’t want a job, it’s a fast track to wealth—as long as you’re prepared to lie down with a pompous, red-faced fool.”
Divorced from Realty
Nancy Mitford, daughter of a lord and the eldest of the celebrated “Mitford sisters,” who entertained, intrigued, and scandalized British society during the mid-20th century, wrote disapprovingly in 1935, “The great families of England herd together in luxury flats and expend their patrimony in the divorce courts,” and bemoaned that “the great houses of England, one of her most envied attributes, stand empty.”
Arthur, Lord Hazlerigg, comes from one of the most ancient lines in England. Noseley Hall, 100 miles north of London, has been his family’s home since 1419. He lives there with Shan, his second wife, and their seven children. The 13th-century chapel on the grounds holds the bones of around 200 of his ancestors."
in the pic...'The Third Lord Montagu and passenger in his 1903 De Dion Bouton on the grounds of Palace House, 1952. From Popperfoto/Getty Images.'

 

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And the final chapter,'In common with the majority of historic-home owners, Hazlerigg has made the house sweat commercially, hiring it out for film shoots, conferences, and weddings. Currently, however, if you have £14 million (approximately $23 million), you can buy the whole thing outright, including the surrounding 1,300 acres of farmland.
“We could have struggled on here for perhaps another few years,” he told me, “but to me it’s a relief that I’ve finally made the decision, and it’s the right decision.” Arthur discussed the idea of the sale with his 21-year-old son and heir, and took him through the balance sheets. Having viewed the figures, he endorsed his father’s decision to sell.
His efforts to raise large capital sums have been repeatedly stymied: English Heritage, the British government’s conservation arm, refused him permission to erect 85 eco-friendly luxury holiday chalets last year. Also, seven paintings that Hazlerigg hoped to sell from the house were found by the courts to be of such intrinsic importance to Noseley that they had to be returned, unsold.
But the torpedo that hit Noseley just below the waterline was his divorce from his first wife, Laura. He elected to fund this by selling chattels from inside the house, and Sotheby’s conducted a two-day sale in 1998 that raised £2.67 million ($4.42 million), before tax. “If I had had any sense at the time,” he says, “I’d have been better off selling the house and keeping the chattels.” Besides the increased value of historic artwork in the interim, there are lots of pieces which he remembers fondly from his childhood and which he misses.
In 1911 the Sixth Marquess of Ailesbury inherited his family’s title, estate, and rampant death duties: “A man does not like to go down to posterity as the alienator of old family possessions,” he commented gloomily. However, Arthur Hazlerigg does not see himself as a quitter. He has wrestled with the conundrum of paying for the upkeep of a huge house (Noseley has 16 bedrooms), with a negligible income from agriculture, for many years. The divorce has left him with nothing in reserve. “With a landed estate,” he explains, “a divorce is probably the beginning of the end. Unless you’re lucky enough to have lovely chattels to sell.”
A local councillor, Steve Charlish, went public with his disappointment at the sale. “It is a terrible blow,” he said, in tones associated with a more deferential era. “The Hazleriggs have been great custodians of the estate for centuries. They have fashioned and protected our countryside.”

But James Miller, a senior figure at Sotheby’s who helped oversee the sale at Noseley, has seen it many times before. “British estates have never been straitjacketed,” he says, shrugging. “Some come and some go. This is an accepted part of the British way, and this fluid state of things has two effects when it comes to a marital breakup. Families and trustees, aware of the dangers of divorce, do what they can to protect their particular estates. Beyond this, though, it really is the survival of the fittest. There has never been a concerted effort to ‘stand together’ as a group. If the dice fall that way for a family, that’s the way it is.”
There is little public sympathy when old landed estates go under the hammer. The sense of duty that owners cite is often anathema to outsiders. Kick Kennedy wrote of her husband Billy’s belief that “duty must come first. He is a fanatic on this subject, and I suppose just such a spirit is what has made England great, despite the fact that Englishmen are considered so weak-looking, etc.” Sixty-five years on, such a creed looks even more puzzling, probably making sense only to those raised to accept their centuries-old code.
Equally, the wish to preserve things for the male heir is at odds with today’s concepts of sexual equality. Who can blame a subsequent wife if she wishes to break some icing off the cake, to satisfy her sweet tooth? Why should she care that she is ruining an entity that has survived for generations in a family that has concentrated exclusively on the boy child from the husband’s first union—in her case, probably with a woman whom she loathes?
One first wife, married to her lord for a quarter of a century, puts the other side of the argument: “My ex-husband and I lived very frugally, in order to preserve everything for our son. But now my ex is married to a young floozy who thinks nothing of selling farms and family paintings that have been in the family for generations—something we would never have dreamt of doing. Sadly, as he’s got older, he’s forgotten what his role is, and thinks it’s enough to pander to the asset-stripping whims of a woman who probably doesn’t understand what she is doing, and, if she does, most definitely doesn’t care.”
Wars, famines, plagues, and economic depressions—the remaining estates in Britain have survived them all. But asset-stripping stepmothers? Aided, if the marriage does not work, by some of the most wife-friendly divorce courts in the world, which do not accept pre-nups as legally binding? These might just be the final days for many historic British landed families.'

 

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Lets have a little peek at some other royal engagement rings, perhaps one of these styles would have suited Kate and drawn fewer comparisons to Diana....?
article that goes along with the photos...'ROYAL ENGAGEMENT RINGS
The eye-popping engagement rings of the European royals. Their choices of stones and designs reflect tradition and opulence.

CABOCHON-CUT SAPPHIRE AND HEART-SHAPED DIAMOND
When Crown Prince Pavlos proposed to American heiress, Marie Chantal, eldest daughter of billionaire and Duty Free mogul, Robert Miller, in 1995, he gave her a rare cabochon-cut sapphire and heart-shaped diamond ring. Prince Pavlos is the eldest son of Constantine II, the deposed King of Greece and Princess Ana Marie of Denmark. Pavlos and Marie Chantal, a children clothing designer, married on July 1, 1995 at St. Sophia’s cathedral, London, England. '

Marie Chantal Miller and Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece on their wedding day, July 1, 1995. The Prince presented Miller an elegant Cabochon-cut Sapphire diamond ring during the announcement of their engagement. Photo from www.brideuniverse.com

 

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'DIAMOND SOLITAIRE WITH WHITE GOLD
The official engagement of Princess Victoria, the future Queen of Sweden, to gym-owner Daniel Westling was announced by the Swedish palace spokesman on April 2009. Westling gave his fiancée a simple solitary round diamond band with a white gold on it. Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling wed on June 19, 2010 at Stockholm, Sweden.

Princess Victoria of Sweden showing her diamond solitaire engagement ring. Photo from www.hellomagazine.com

 

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'DIAMOND RING WITH WHITE GOLD TRIM
Pavlos' first cousin, the Prince of Asturias, Prince Felipe, only son of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain, gave his future bride, Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano in 2003 with a 16 baguette diamond ring set in a white gold trim.

Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz. Photo from www.royaldish.com

 

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EMERALD-CUT DIAMOND WITH RUBIES
Prince Frederick of Denmark proposed to his Australian girlfriend, Mary Donaldson, a former marketing executive, in 2003. He gave his future bride a gorgeous ring of emerald-cut diamond surrounded with two ruby baguettes.

Mary Donaldson and Prince Frederick posed during the announcement of their official engagement. Photo from www.pricescope.com

 

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And of course the famous ring now with Kate!
'OVAL-SHAPED BLUE SAPPHIRE WITH 18 DIAMONDS
When Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, proposed marriage to Lady Diana Spencer in February 1981, he presented his future bride with a fabulous engagement ring from Garrads, an 18-carat oval-shaped blue sapphire surrounded with 14 brilliant-cut diamonds, valued at $50,000.00 that time. It was reported that Lady Diana personally picked the ring when the crown jeweler brought several stones in her presence, the 19-year-old Diana giggled when she saw the eye-catching large stone and exclaimed “I love it!” She wore this ring everyday of her life even after her divorce to the Prince of Wales in 1996. The ring attached a sentimental value that when Diana’s eldest son, Prince William (who revealed how much he missed his mother everyday), proposed to Kate Middleton in October 2010 at Kenya, Africa, he decided to give her the engagement ring which is very precious to his mother to make sure Diana would not be missed out on the important occasion of his life.



Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in February 1981. Prince William and Kate Middleton in November 2010 showing the same engagement ring.


The ring is very precious to the late Princess of Wales, Diana, who personally chose it among the array of precious stones when crown jeweler, Garrads, brought several designs to Buckingham Palace in 1981.

 

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'PLATINUM-SET OVAL ORANGE DIAMOND
The Dutch throne announced the official engagement of Queen Beatrix’s heir, Prince Wilhelm-Alexander, to Argentinian investment banker, Maxima Zorreguieta Cerruti on March 30, 2001. He presented his future bride with a unique platinum-set ring which has an oval orange diamond on its center flanked by two emerald-cut diamond encrusted with sparkling gems.

Prince Alexander and Maxima Zorreguietta with a platinum-set oval diamond engagement ring.

 

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'PEAR-SHAPED DIAMOND RING
The sovereign Prince of Monaco, Albert II, will finally embark into married life. At 52, the Prince maybe the oldest royal bachelor in the present-day European monarchy. The royal palace of Monaco announced the official engagement of the Prince on June 26, 2010. He gave her an exquisite pear-shaped ring with round brilliant-cut diamonds set in a unique gray gold. This ring is reportedly created by Parisian jeweler, Maison Repossi.

Prince Albert II of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock posed for photographers. The pair will get married on the summer of 2010 says the palace insider.

 

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The rest of that article gave a little story, a story of royals marrying commoners,
'Once upon a time....

European royals are treated as demigods by their subjects that commoners were not allowed to mix, let alone join their illustrious court. Tradition and practice during those times prohibit royalty to marry a commoner because a morganatic marriage could automatically remove a royal member from the line of succession. Two grandsons of King Christian X of Denmark and King Gustav V’s of Sweden lost their princely titles and inheritance for marrying commoners. Sons of King George III (after the death Princess Charlotte) abandoned their commoner lovers to look for royal brides in Germany to retain their place in the line of succession. Years later, almost all European royals succumbed to what their ancestors dreaded most --- taking commoner spouses.

After World War II, royal marriages seemed disappeared together with the remnants of the war that royal houses began opening its doors to commoners, making their once revered royal courts more like celebrity playgrounds. The disenchantment of the public soon withered and the scandals and controversies by ill-breed commoners began tarnishing the prestige of the crowns. So how it would revive the magic? Some analysts suggested, it would be better for the royals to choose a spouse within their circle to save their institution from crumbling. But it seems the modern world greatly influenced the lives of most royal members that eventually the existence of fairytale ultimately vanished.

The first European King to marry a commoner is King Harald V of Norway, second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. In 1971 Harald married Sonja Haraldsen, a commoner University graduate amidst the prodding of his royal relatives to choose Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark, a daughter of King Paul I of Greece. King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden followed the trend by marrying a German commoner, Silvia Sommerlath, in 1978.

In Britain, the last aristocrat to marry a member of the royal family was Lady Diana Spencer. She was the daughter of the 8th Earl of Althorp, the Lord Spencer, a direct descendant of King Charles II. In 2005, Diana’s ex-husband, Prince Charles, married his long time mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles, and because she was divorced at the time of her marriage, she would not be crowned as Queen when Charles ascend the throne but would just be styled as Princess Consort. The last royal princess who married into the British royal family was Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, first cousin of Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh, she married the Duke of Kent, Prince George, a first cousin to Queen Elizabeth II, in 1936.

In 1970s, Charles' favorite uncle, Lord Mountbatten, warned him from falling in love to commoners, he said: “Love is not an option for a man who would be King of England”, within three decades, Charles’ son, Prince William, crossed the barrier of unknown territories traditionally prohibited to British heirs -taking a middle-class commoner woman as a future wife. I am wondering if the soul of Lord Mountbatten (who was dubbed during his lifetime as the King maker for largely helping King George VI on the Kingship and for training the young Prince Charles on his future role) could really rest in peace.

(Prince Charles and his second wife, Camilla, who took the name Duchess of Cornwall upon their marriage in 2005, taken from Charles' second title, Duke of Cornwall. She is a commoner who had been Charles' mistress for almost 25 years. One of the causes of the crumble of marriage between Charles and Diana. Camilla first met Charles in 1971 but Lord Mountbatten strongly warned Prince Charles that a relationship with a commoner might cost his throne,siting the case of King Edward VIII who was voluntarily abdicated to marry his commoner lover, Wallis Simpson.)

Among the current rulers of Europe, only King Juan Carlos of Spain and Queen Elizabeth II of Britain have royal spouses. Juan Carlos' wife is Sofia, the former Princess of Greece and Denmark, eldest child of King Paul I of Greece, Juan Carlos and Sofia are third cousin four times through Queen Victoria of Britain. Queen Elizabeth II's husband is the former Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, King Paul I's first cousin, he renounced his Greek royal title to be more acceptable to the British public for his marriage to the heiress presumptive, the then Princess Elizabeth, he was created the Duke of Edinburgh by his future father in-law, King George VI, who was his second cousin through King Christian IX of Denmark (Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are 3rd cousin through Queen Victoria).

Presently, among the future crown heads of Europe, only Prince Philipe of Belgium and Prince Alois of Liechtenstein have aristocrat spouses. Philipe’s wife, although not royal by birth, Mathilde, is a daughter of a Belgian Baron while Alois’ wife, Princess Sophia, is a German Duchess. The rest future crown heads married commoners, Swedish future monarch, Princess Victoria recently to Daniel Westling, a Swedish gym owner, Prince Frederick of Denmark to Australian Marketing Executive, Mary Donaldson, Prince Felipe of Spain to former TV anchor Letizia Ortiz, Prince Wilhelm of The Netherlands to Argentinian investment banker Maxima Zorreguieta, Prince Haakon of Norway to Mette Merit.

Aside from Prince William, another royal who will getting married next year is 52-year-old bachelor ruler of Monaco, His Serene Highness Prince Albert II, his fiancée is Charlene Wittstock, a commoner South African Olympian. But his choice of a bride did not create much controversy in the royal circle as Monaco is just a tiny principality in the dot of Europe’s geography, unlike William who is destined to become King William V of the United Kingdom.

Diana’s biographer, Andrew Morton, once wrote, “Grafting commoners into the Hanoverian tree (William’s bloodline) proved to be very disastrous. The chronic instability of the marriages between commoners and royalty is far more than a personal tragedy. It is a signal that a necessary experiment born of changed historical circumstances has failed. There’s no obvious solution to the problem. This is a severe reality how the royal family relates to the outsiders. Anybody who married into the royal family welded in traditions and decorum which make the task to an outsider almost impossible to fulfill. The pursuit of personal happiness and freedom is out of the question, it is duty first”.

May these lines from Morton would not provoke another royal divorce in the years to come. '

 

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Here is a view point from a journalist on ,
'So How the Marriage Will Turn Out?
(this blog post is requested by Miss Katia Mishchuk, a Ukrainian journalist)

The announcement of the official engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton last November 16, 2010, spurred mixed reactions from the public. Traditional royalists naturally criticized his choice of a wife, not only Miss Middleton comes from a middle-class background but she is also a commoner without any noble or royal lineage either of her parents’ side. But the ordinary public pleased that the eldest son of Prince Charles and the late Diana, Princess of Wales will be marrying an ordinary woman to lessen the barrier that divides royalty from commoners.
So what would be the complexities William and Kate would face in the future? Much speculations and predictions had been said on their future marriage, the pressure of being a member of the British royal family would surely take a huge toll on Kate’s privacy as she sometimes detested the prying eye of the media. But the day she will marry the future British King, she will forever endure the presence of the lens men whether she like it or not, that’s the high prize she would pay for marrying an heir to the highest throne on Earth.

The wedding will take place next year, 2011 and because Prince Charles has not yet ascended the British throne, Prince William’s wedding, except for security costs, will not be shouldered by the British government, it was reported that the Prince of Wales will foot the bill on the ceremony. William and Kate will not occupy any royal residences after the wedding, they will continue residing at the village of Anglesey in North Wales where they had been sharing an apartment since early this year. Prince William is currently assigned near Anglesey as a search-and-rescue operation pilot of the Royal Armed Forces.
Recent updates say that Prince William has disagreement with his advisers regarding the date of his wedding, the Prince reportedly wanted to walk-down-the-aisle in spring next year, either March or April. Why the Prince is such in a hurry?

My opinion is this, maybe because he is busy with his career as a search-and-rescue-operation pilot of the Royal Armed Forces and wanted to get things done earlier. But I am thinking one more thing, maybe the Prince is afraid of public disenchantment towards his commoner fiancee, who is not welcome in the conservative circle of traditional royalists, there are even “black guest books” circulated in the internet denouncing Middleton’s suitability as the future Princess of Wales. Since the middle ages, no future British King ever married a middle-class woman.


So how long the marriage will last? How long she could endure the criticism? It is a known fact that all the marriages of the three children of Her Majesty including her only sibling, Princess Margaret, to commoners, ended up in divorce, an evidence how the royal family members relate to the “outsiders” (their term for commoners). Though love should not be questioned, maybe royal duties and being constantly in the limelight add to the pressure and strain on the relationships. So the table is now turn to Kate Middleton, can she really handle the pressure of being in the public eye and the scrutiny of the public?

In February 1981, after the official engagement of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was announced, she moved to Clarence House to live with the Queen Mother, then transferred to Buckingham Palace few months before the wedding to familiarize with the royal routine, she was tutored how to live a life of a Princess and how to function as the future Queen Consort. But in great contrast, Middleton, reportedly will not go through the same process, so the underlying question now, "Is Kate really prepared for the trappings of royalty?


It is uncommon for the couples not to engage in petty quarrels and heated arguments and the royal family is no exemption. So how about William and Kate? Well, some of the possible rows they will encounter later on maybe scarcity of time together. Prince William is quite devoted with his career in the military and his trainings on his future role as a monarch, Middleton might be left behind seating on the window wondering where her Prince is. I doubt if she would cook meals for her husband or do some laundry at home or stitch some patches on his clothes. She should take a career of her own and not just tag around with Prince William (the only thing she is quite expert of for the past eight years). She might disillusioned joining the royal family if she would just stay behind the shadow of her future husband just like what happened to Sarah Ferguson, the wife of William's uncle, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who became bored with her role as her husband was busy with his naval career.

Their wedding might not be a state’s affair, but it would surely draw guests from different European royal houses and British aristocrats. I am just wondering how the middle-class family of Kate Middleton would fit in. Pomp and pageantry are where royals do their best, the prancing horses, drawn carriages, sparkling tiaras and fairytale rituals stir emotion and sympathy from the adoring subjects, so the royal family wouldn't mind spending lavishly on the ceremony because it would also boost their tourism industry and pump money to their economy.

Kate Middleton indeed is very lucky, considering that ordinary couples in the modern world divide the wedding costs equally among themselves, Middleton and her parents are free from financial obligations as the Prince of Wales will shoulder all the expenses from his private fortune, the wedding expenses are predicted to mount, more or less, $20 million!

Knowing how extravagant royals are, the couple might be receiving opulent presents from the upper-class. Home furniture, linens, pillows and kitchen utensils - which are the common gifts given to ordinary couples – are out of the questions as presents, the couple might receive something grand, like home theater system or a brand new luxury car or an estate.

Though, Prince William has not heard publicly how many children he wanted, personally, I think they should have at least two, to cut budget on the part of the Parliament, because for sure, Prince William’s household will be included on the civil list as he is not yet the heir-apparent, the Duchy of Cornwall is still under his father’s care. But I doubt if Kate really could produce a child, I am just thinking (or wishing) of any barrenness on her part so as not to give the British throne heirs with no aristocratic names build on the mother’s side, well, hmmm…just part of my wild imagination.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Prince William's grandmother. She is the first British monarch in 500 years who allowed commoners to join her direct family, but all these marriages ended up in divorce. Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth II is one of the last two European monarchs (the other is King Juan Carlos of Spain whose wife, Queen Sophia, is a daughter of King Paul of Greece) who has a royal spouse, her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is a former Greek Prince (first cousin of King Paul).

With her middle-class background, Kate will surely receive a cold treatment from the upper-class Britons and from Prince William’s own family, the British monarchy is known for their upper-lip system and seems detested “outsiders”, maybe Middleton is accepted on the surface but not privately, I could hear the grinding of the teeth of the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alexandra of Kent and some traditional royalists. Prince William’s position as a future British King maybe made the family think he could have chosen a woman with noble birth and with royal pedigree or anybody from the upper-class to rightly produce royal children. Middleton will be isolated in her own and lonely world and will eventually lost the fascination she once held for Prince William. I am even thinking a situation where they would possibly end up in divorce.
Princess Diana, wearing a polka dot Catherine Walker gown and the Spencer family tiara, attending a state banquet in Auckland, April 1983. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Getty Images)

May the future marriage of Prince William will not bite a dust as what happened to the marriages of his royal relatives who took commoner spouses.

Diana, Princess of Wales. She was the last aristocrat to marry a member of the British royal family. As a daughter of an English Earl, Diana was of noble birth her father was directly descended from King Charles II of England and her mother was a daughter of a rich English baron, the 4th Lord Fermoy, her grandparents were both serving the British royal court as Courtiers and Ladies-in-waiting. In British social class system, royalty stood at the top of humanity's ladder, birthright is more important than wealth and achievements, money never impressed the elite system of the royal family.

 

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Prince William and his future title
Now that the official engagement is finally announced, the focus of attention now is on few issues surrounding the wedding ceremony which will happen either spring or summer next year (2011), who will pay for the wedding, the surname he will going to use on the marriage entry and what will be his future title. Let's talk about these things here.

Though I resented Middleton to be the future Queen Consort of England, I couldn't resist talking about Prince William because he is royalty and second-in-line to the highest throne on Earth and he is such an important member of the European royal court.

Who will pay for the wedding?

In all honesty, any human being who will be married into royalty will be very lucky because that human being will walk-down-the-aisle free from worries in terms of financial obligation. Unlike ordinary couples who practically share on the cost of the wedding, pulling their financial resources together, royalty will handle all the expenses especially if he or she is a member of an existing royal house of Europe and in direct succession to the throne. Usually wedding expenses of heirs-to-the throne are paid by the state and the monarch, so taxpayers will have to shoulder some portion of the costs. Prince Charles' wedding to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 had cost the British government almost $5 million and Swedish future monarch, Princess Victoria's wedding last June 2010 to Daniel Westling had cost the Swedish government almost $10 million. But in the case of Prince William, since he is only second-in-line to the throne, his wedding expenses will be shouldered by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II and his father, Prince Charles, whose annual income is generated from the crown property, the Duchy of Cornwall. It is still unknown if taxpayers will share the burden of the wedding cost, so far the British Parliament under David Cameron, a fifth cousin once-removed to Her Majesty through King William IV, has not been heard anything about sharing expenses.

What will be the Prince's surname to be used on the marriage entry?

It is a known fact that royalty has no family name, the royals are known only with the title and the principality or country they belonged. But the children of Queen Elizabeth II used Mountbatten-Windsor as their surname on marriage entries. The Queen's husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, though a royal Prince by birth (he is a grandson of King George I of Greece), he renounced his Greek royal title in 1946 in order to marry Elizabeth (as the British subjects dislike foreign royals especially with ties to German royal heritage) so he used his maternal grandfather's surname Mountbatten (though Philip's maternal grandfather, Louis of Battenberg, was a Prince from Germany, he was forced to relinquish his Princely title during World War I because of anti-German sentiments in England, he was made by his first cousin-in-law, King George V--grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II & Philip's uncle through King Christian IX of Denmark and Queen Victoria of England, as the first Marquess of Milford Haven and anglicized his surname to Mountbatten). In 1960, Queen Elizabeth II announced that all her descendants should carry a name Mountbatten-Windsor if needs arise to use a family name.

What will be William's future title?

Traditionally, all British Princes upon marriage are given the title of a "DUKE", the highest hereditary title of nobility in Britain. Reports said that Prince William will either be given a title of Duke of Clarence or Duke of Sussex. Duke of Clarence because his father's official London residence is the Clarence House, Duke of Sussex because William's present home (he shared with Middleton, they have been living together since January this year) is near the county of Sussex in North Wales. But reports strongly favored the Duke of Clarence title because this is much associated with the heirs to the British throne. King William IV, third son of King George III, was the Duke of Clarence before he ascended the throne, Prince Albert Victor, the heir-apparent of King Edward VII, was given the title Duke of Clarence instead of Prince of Wales, but unfortunately, he predeceased his father, passing the throne to his younger brother who became King George V.

But if the Prince will turn down any of these titles, he will be known only as Prince William of Wales until his father ascended the throne. Without any nobility title of his own, the Prince will continue be addressed with his father's geographical title. Since serving the British military, William is known as Lieutenant Wales. Presently, he is a full-fledged search-and-rescue operation pilot in the Royal Armed Forces. (click "older posts" below to read more on Prince William's status)

 

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Prince William's Engagement!
The Prince of Wales announced the engagement of his eldest son, Prince William, to a commoner woman, Kate Middleton, on November 16, 2010, Tuesday. William presented Middleton an exquisite oval-shaped blue sapphire engagement ring surrounded with 18 diamonds previously worn by his mother, Princess Diana, on her engagement to Prince Charles in 1981. Prince William is the first British heir in history to marry a middle-class woman, if he had lived prior to the 20th century, his marriage would be considered "morganatic" and would lose his place in the line of succession.

His future wife, Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, who is six months older than him, is a daughter of Michael and Carole Middleton, both flight attendants before founding a family business, Party Pieces. They lived in Berkshire county near Windsor Castle. Her middle class background is viewed as nothing but a mockery at its finest form to the most exalted royal court on earth. Since the 17th century, no future British King ever married a middle class woman.

Unlike the late Princess of Wales, Diana, Kate Middleton did not generate mass hysteria when she started dating Prince William. Her unimpressive personality failed to capture everybody's fascination of a fairytale Princess. Let's admit it, the survival of the monarchy partly relies on public approval, King Edward VIII already cost his throne all because of inappropriate choice for a wife. Though Kate is not divorced unlike Wallis Simpson, she is hardly a phenomenon who could add glamour and charm to the dilapidated House of Windsor. Some royal watchers are even disgusted with her wild partying image and her eagerness to jump into the royal bandwagon, in contrast to other commoners who are independently-established, accomplished, and have soaring careers before marrying royal Princes in the European court, Middleton has no career of her own and was seen as very dependent to Prince William all through out their 8-year relationship. It is doubted if she could really carry a role of a future Queen Consort and could handle the pressure of being in the royal fold.


William should learn from history. His great-great uncle, King Edward VIII, voluntary abdicated in 1936 because his choice for a wife almost created a Constitutional Crisis. The King was besotted to a commoner, twice divorced American woman, Wallis Simpson, the British subjects strongly opposed her to be their "regina". The King abdicated and lived in a lonely exile, he was also stripped of his properties and his wife did not receive a royal status.

Though William and Kate had been in a relationship for almost eight years, her total lack of aristocratic background and unfamiliarity of the royal routine fretted other royalists and doubted if she could survive in the rigid system of the British establishment. After the collapse of his parents' marriage in 1990s, many royalists suggested that Prince William should choose a woman within his circle who is more discreet and familiar with the royal decorum. The "outsiders" (royal family's term for commoners) find the royal routine dour and boring that some of them who joined the establishment became disillusioned with their role. The marriages of Princess Anne to Mark Phillips, Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson and Princess Margaret to Tony Armstrong-Jones, all ended in divorce.

Andrew Morton once wrote "Grafting commoners into the Hanoverian (Queen Elizabeth's bloodline) Tree proved to be very disastrous". Lord Mountbatten, the favorite uncle of Prince Charles, told the latter in early 70's "Love is not an option for a man who would be King of England, it is a consideration in marriage but not a guiding force".

Traditionally, royal brides should come from a suitable background with royal pedigree, not a Roman Catholic because a British King would automatically become a Supreme head of the Church of England which is a protestant church. She should free from any sort of scandal and could carry a royal responsibility with ease. Royals who were suggested to Prince William during his teenage years include Princess Madelaine of Sweden and Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark both well-educated, very independent and accomplished.

The idea of choosing a royal bride is this: The monarchy is a different institution, people within their circle are reared with a certain role to fulfill which only royalty could grasp, inviting commoners into the turf, would mean exposing the "magic and charm" they held precious. The outsiders hardly understand this ancient royal tradition.


Only fortune teller could tell how long Kate Middleton could endure the upper-lip system of the British establishment which Princess Diana later on found "unbearable". Let's just hope that Prince William's future marriage wouldn't pass to the same troubled water his royal relatives' marital union gone through.

 

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An article that caught interest;
THE MAD ROYALS
The privilege, wealth and trappings of royalty brought so much pressure and burden to European royals that some of them went on to suffer severe psychotic disorders and paranoid tendencies.

Here is my Top Five list of Mad Royals in European Monarchy.
(This listing is just based on my research towards European royals who were gone mad. Other writers may have different list depending on how they viewed madness in the royal court, some even declared King Charles IX of France as the craziest royal in European Monarchy)

5. HENRY VI, King of England (1421-1471)

He was the youngest monarch to ascend the English throne. His father, Henry V, died when he was only nine-month old. When his maternal grandfather died, he was also declared King of France. He reigned from 1422-1461 during the War of the Roses, but his reign in France was abated when Joan of Arc successfully drove out the English troops from Orleans and brought Henry's uncle, Charles VII, to the French throne. During his infancy, his two uncles, the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Bedford, sat as regents until he was 16 years old.

Henry VI was described as a pious man, deeply religious and well-mannered, but he lacked a strength of character and mind as a resolute ruler. As a result, his Kingdom was ravaged by wars and pretenders to the throne including his cousin, Edward of York.

Henry was the only child of King Henry V, the second of the Lancastrian monarchs, and his wife, Princess Katherine of France, daughter of Charles VI (the mad). To end the hostilities of the Hundred Years of War, King Charles VI, agreed to a peace treaty where his daughter would marry Henry V and made him his successor, disinheriting Katherine's brother, Charles.

He married Princess Margaret of Anjou, a strong-willed woman who became the real leader in the Kingdom. Henry VI's madness began showing early on his reign, he would sit alone unmovable and refused to eat. Later on, he yielded to the pressures of leading a Kingdom haunted by invasion and dispute of rival claimants, the King became melancholic and preferred a life in seclusion, he would not talk to anybody including his wife, he was even surprised when he saw his son whom he claimed "conceived by the Holy Ghost". He was reportedly laughing and singing when his soldiers were fighting against enemies in Wales' battlefield. He was declared insane later on, captured and murdered by the Yorks in the Tower of London with his heir, Prince Edward. Upon his death, the English throne was occupied by the Yorks and its leader mounted the throne as King Edward IV.

4. CHARLES VI, King of FRANCE (1368-1422)

He was King of France from 1380 to 1422. He was the son of Charles V (the wise) and Princess Joan of Bourbon. Charles VI's mother suffered a nervous breakdown and was declared insane after the birth of her 7th child, his father was reportedly suffered from "severe gout" all through out his life, the bad genes unfortunately passed to Charles VI and to his grandson, King Henry VI of England.

During the Hundred Years of War, France suffered heavy casualties against England, tired and weary, Charles VI, agreed to a peace treaty where he relented to give up his descendants' right to the French throne and allowed his daughter, Princess Katherine, to marry the English King, Henry V, he also made Henry as his successor.

His maladies ranges from mild to severe, at one point, he killed his men while pursuing their enemies, when he was brought to the ground to calm down and informed on what had happened, he terribly wept. In later years, he made himself believed he was made from a spur glass and prevented people to come nearer to him, afraid that he would break into pieces. His staff would lock him in a secluded room when his insanity attacked him, he would shout and wail like a baby in the room, he would refuse to eat and change clothes. At the end of the Hundred Years of War, he made France almost miserable when his fits of madness made him to act irresponsibly. He died in seclusion after the birth of his grandson, Henry VI of England.

3. Joanna , Queen of Castile (1479-1555)

Joanna the Mad (older sister of Queen Catherine, first wife of King Henry VIII of England) became the heiress presumptive on the thrones of Castile and Aragon when her two older siblings died. At the age of 16, she married Philip the Handsome of Austria, after giving birth to six children, Joanna began showing signs of madness where she would burst into uncontrollable rages and stormed her household with terrifying tantrums.Her constant bout of insanity became frequent when she found out her husband carried extra marital affairs.

But despite her mental instability, she was declared legitimate successor of her mother, Isabella I of Castile. In 1504, her mother died, so her family moved back to Spain carrying a large entourage of Hapsburg staff. Joanna crowned Queen of Castile but her increasing attack of hysteria made the government believed she could not carry her responsibilities effectively so they made her husband as regent which infuriated Joanna’s father, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, more. Joanna would often seen running and screaming along the palace corridor.

She eventually locked up in a poorly ventilated castle accompanied by her daughter, Infanta Catherine, the future wife of King John III of Portugal. Joanna temporarily recovered only to find out her husband dead which many believed poisoned by her father to prevent Philip from ruling Aragon. Upon Philip’s death, the regency of Castile passed to Ferdinand II, Joanna became more mentally disturbed with these circumstances that when the funeral of her husband traveled to Burgos City for a burial, she suddenly ordered the entourage to snatch her husband’s coffin and refused to bury. Despite the wrangling of her staff and ministers, she successfully brought back the body of her husband to the palace. For the next years Joanna would open the casket and caressed her husband’s decaying body. But reports disputed later on that the Mad Queen’s purpose of opening the coffin of her husband was not to kiss or caress him but to make sure the body was not taken by any woman.

When Joanna died, her son succeeded both the thrones of Castile and Aragon reigning under the name of Charles I, he succeeded his paternal grandfather, Maximilian I, as Holy Roman Emperor bearing the name Charles V. He was the first monarch under the united Spain. He ruled vast of the continent that his Empire was called “at which the sun never sets”. He married his first cousin, Princess Isabella of Portugal, daughter of her maternal aunt, Maria of Aragon and King Manuel I of Portugal. Their son Philip, Prince of Asturias married his double first cousin Princess Maria Manuela of Portugal, daughter of John III (brother of his mother Isabella) and Catherine of Castile (sister of his father Charles). This incestuous relationship produced a physically and mentally badly deformed son, Don Carlos, the future Prince of Asturias and the headache of Spain.


2. DON CARLOS, the Crown Prince of Spain (1545-156

His ancestors’ famous inbreeding within the family of Hapsburg and Braganza, resulted to various physical and mental deformities of this unfortunate Spanish Prince. Don Carlos was a difficult and strenuous child even at the very early stage of his life. He did not speak until the age of four, did not start to walk until the age of six and even at the age of ten still constantly attended by private nurses as he could not make bathing alone. The Prince would bite the breasts of his nurses, five of those nearly died form severe wounds . Even beyond five years old, his language was hardly understood and could not elaborate clearly what his words meant. Finally his tutors gave up and uttered to Philip that his son was hopeless to learn.

Carlos grew up an insecure and mentally deranged young boy where his past time included mutilating live animals, whipped women, terrorizing staff even government ministers and prone to violent rages, he ate voraciously and seemed didn't know the word moderation. His mentally unstable behavior feared the King’s subjects and courtiers as he would make decisions out of nowhere. One day while attending lectures at the University, he accidentally fell and rolled several steps on the staircase, his head was smashed creating a huge hole. The prince recovered but the accident escalated his difficult behavior even more.

When he was 22 years old, he recruited some men to assassinate his father, his plan was discovered by his paternal half-brother who told the King. Don Carlos was captured and imprisoned in the dark room, he was not allowed to accept visitors and his foods were controlled by staff. He later on died, reportedly, from poisoning.

1. IVAN IV, the terrible Emperor of Russia (1530-1584)

This Russian monarch might be the exact definition of what the word “terrible” is all about. Though his reign was considered a great one in the annals of Russian political history, his terrifying behavior shrouded his accomplishments..

The Emperor was described as nearly neurotic, obsessive, sadist with horrifying rages, his very disturbing character suggests he was a psychopath. His form of entertainment was watching his subjects suffered enormously from beating, he would order people to kill at his pleasure, he would rape hapless peasant women and thrown them to lake or hungry animals or burn them alive afterwards, he was heartless, emotionless and with quick mood shifts, he was fond of torturing disloyal subjects. He had some of his friends thrown in prison and let them starve to death.

Ivan the terrible became Russia’s monarch when he was three years old, his mother, Jelena Glinsky, sat as regent, she died later on, possibly of poisoning, Ivan and his brother, Yuri, was left in the care of loyal servants, but the rising of enemies in the palace lead them to live in terror, hunger and oppression which greatly affected his behavior in later years. The young emperor could not counter-attack his oppressors so he would throw his revenge to defenseless animals by piercing their eyes, took off their feathers and slit their bodies.

He had eight wives who were mostly sent to convent when he lost his fascination, one wife was drown in lake when he discovered she was not virgin anymore. Ivan accidentally killed his son during their terrible row, he later banged his head on the coffin of his son which left a huge scar on his head. He was a great schemer and loved to see people begged for mercy, several times during his reign, he announced to abdicate to become a monk. He died from stroke while playing chess, he was succeeded by his son, Feodor, who exhibited the same neurotic behavior as his father.

Note: Listing of Mad Royals varies depending on one's view towards madness. Most writers even listed King George III of England as more insane than his ancestor, King Henry VI, others even included King Ludwig II of Bavaria, King Alfonso VI of Portugal and King Charles IX of France in the Top Five list of Crazy Royals in the European court.

 

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Diana, William's beloved mother, touched so many people, here is an article written about Diana by someone who met her who worked with the red cross;
'Red Cross member Pat Marjoram shares her memories of meeting Diana
By Lady Cornwall Closed
Categories: Princess Diana News

THOUSANDS of hours spent working for the Red Cross have seen Pat Marjoram progress from dutifully making raffia lampshades with bored hospital patients to meeting Princess Diana during a royal visit to Belper.

Diana meeting Red Cross members

The 70-year-old is now semi-retired from the charity – but only after devoting her entire adult life to it.

Her involvement began when she was 18, working as a delivery driver for a grocery firm after passing her driving test.

She said: "Because I learned to drive I felt I needed to know first aid, so I signed up for a 12-week course with the Red Cross.

"I enjoyed it so much I was invited to do a nursing course and, at the end, I was told I could join as a uniformed member.

"I’ve always been interested in how the human body works and it’s interesting that you can learn about it and then be able to give help when it’s needed."

Pat, of Portway, Coxbench, still remembers her very first voluntary shift on a hospital ward.

She went to Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and was amazed to be greeted by the hospital matron, who had made time to welcome her.

Pat said: "She came down to greet me at reception, took me to the ward and explained to the sister why I had come, how long I’d be there and what I’d be doing."

The Red Cross nurses were intended to be an extra pair of hands in addition to the paid staff, but they became so well-established they were often given a reasonable amount of responsibility.

Pat ( below) remembers one night working on an elderly ward in the now-demolished Manor Hospital, which stood opposite the site of the Royal Derby Hospital.

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She said: "The ward sister told me she was leaving me in charge because all the staff were going for a fire drill for an hour.

"There I was, all alone. I felt like Florence Nightingale and took my duties very seriously, patrolling up and down. Of course all the patients were tucked up, asleep."

For more than a decade, Pat spent most of her free time volunteering.

She worked on hospital wards on Mondays, did crafts with patients on Wednesdays, trained on Thursdays and volunteered to help on the blood donor van on Sundays.

She admits that some of the work she did was more essential than others.

She said: "Young chaps would come into hospital with broken legs and pelvises from motorbike accidents and they’d be there, strung up in traction.

"And we’d go round and inflict the poor souls with making raffia lampshades and canework trays."

After she married and moved to Belper, Pat set up a local centre for the Red Cross, ran courses, and volunteered at the town’s Babington Hospital.

Later on, she devoted a lot of energy to setting up a training room at Babington Hospital which was opened by Princess Diana in 1992.

Pat Marjoram meets Diana in 1992

The princess was patron of the Red Cross’s youth members, of which there was a strong contingent in Derbyshire.

She said: "Princess Diana was absolutely wonderful.

"She was very tall and she really was beautiful.

"She had the manner where you felt she’d come just to see you and that she was very reluctant to leave."

When the princess arrived, the children were clustered in little groups in the hospital garden doing various activities.

Pat said: "They were sitting on blankets on the grass and the princess went and sat with them."

Diana at Babington Hospital 1992

It was in 1998 that Pat came up with the idea of creating an archive, led by a desire to document the history of the branch.

She knew that many members with knowledge of the branch’s history were nearing the end of their lives.

The idea was also prompted by the abolition of local branch trustees, which many members – wrongly, as it turned out – felt cast doubt over the future of the local branches.

The archive is at the Derbyshire branch headquarters in Red Cross House, Matlock Green.

Pat said: "It’s an old house that has cellars and attics and things were stuffed away in cupboards."

The archive includes minutes of meetings dating back to 1909, annual reports, newspaper cuttings, hundreds of photographs, old uniforms and medical equipment – including bedpans and thermometers.

But, due to a lack of space, the uniforms and equipment have been stored away in boxes and the collection is very much an archive rather than a museum display.

Pat said: "We haven’t finished. We’re still doing it because we get sent items when former members die."

She has created information boards about the branch history which she has used to put on displays around the county.

These have already been to Derby’s Silk Mill, Glossop, and the Erewash Museum, and are currently on show at both Bakewell and Chesterfield’s Tourist Information offices.

Putting together the archive also inspired Pat to write her book – Our Great Endeavour, Derbyshire Branch 1909 to 2009.

She said: "I said that somebody should write a book about it and then I realised it should probably be me because nobody else really knew the extent of what was there, as I was the one who started the archive.

"I realised how much information there was and what a marvellous story it was."

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Ok, im off to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz posting more tomorrow! Enjoy!

 

[Kay]

The ring, in two places...

The picture of Diana with her two young sons posted on the first page is very sweet. I think she would have been pleased and honored that William chose to give her ring to his bride.

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Oh I have so many photos! So little time! lol, Here we go! Some more advert type listings for Diana/Kate rings...

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Another cover for the happy couple!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

A very young Kate!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

The beautiful and glowing Diana upon her own engagement announcement.

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Lady Diana on her own wedding day....the 'wedding of the century'....

 

[Sithathoriunet]

The young and very poised, Diana, Princess of Wales..

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Diana had to perfect her exit from vehicles for the photographers were always there!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Kate will have to work on her exits as well!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Kate seems to have a great sense of humor!

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Remember Diana's too low cut black dress upon her first big outting after the announcement of her engagement?

 

[Sithathoriunet]

Here is the dress that caused such a stir....and of course, paired with the exit not yet perfected by the young Diana...