C2206 Diana Spencer was not a naive girl from the English countryside who stumbled into the most photographed marriage of the century and found the machinery frightening. That story has been told so many times it has worn grooves into the culture, in films, memoirs, documentaries, stage productions, and no fewer than three separate television series, … Read more
In the early 1970s, inside a 20-room apartment at Kensington Palace, Princess Margaret opened the drawer where she kept her gloves and found a piece of paper her husband had left for her. It was a list. According to the biographer Anne de Courcy, who spent years interviewing the man who wrote it, the list … Read more
On the morning of April 11, 1919, an elderly woman in black stood on the quayside at Yalta Harbor and watched British sailors load her trunks onto a warship. She was 71 years old. Her eldest son had been murdered nine months earlier in a basement in Yekaterinburg, along with his wife and all five … Read more
The photograph went out on a Sunday morning in March 2024, timed for Mothering Sunday in Britain. It showed Catherine, Princess of Wales, seated on a wooden garden chair surrounded by her three children, smiling in a soft cardigan. It was the first image of her released since major abdominal surgery two months earlier had … Read more
Ich schrieb also ein einziges Wort: „Genießt es. “ Und dann gingen die Fotos auf Facebook. Mama, Papa, meine Schwester, immer und immer wieder. Nicht weil sie mich vermissten, sondern weil sie sahen, wie die Familie ohne mich aussah. Aber das ist keine Geschichte über Reichtum. Ich starrte eine Weile auf die Nachricht, als könnten … Read more
Vešel jsem do vlastního domu pro zapomenutou složku a to ticho bylo špatné. Ne ostré, ne křiklavé, jen nějak moc hluboké, jako když dům zadržuje dech. Ještě před pár hodinami tu byla normální středa. Teď jsem stál v předsíni a věděl jsem, že se něco děje, i když jsem nedokázal říct co. Tenhle příběh nevyprávím … Read more
Die Lichterketten warfen warme Flecken auf den Rasen unseres Hinterhofs in Asheville, und für einen kurzen Augenblick konnte ich mir einbilden, dass alles gut war. Es war Averys siebter Geburtstag, und ich hatte für alles gesorgt. Ich hatte Schilder ausgedruckt, auf denen „Ohne Nüsse“ stand, und jede einzelne Zuckergussverpackung zweimal kontrolliert. Der Kuchen stand unberührt … Read more
On May 8, 1963, in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, a judge named John Wheatley began reading aloud from a document so long that reporters in the press gallery had brought spare notebooks. Wheatley was a Lord Ordinary of the Scottish bench, a Catholic, a former Lord Advocate, and a man trained to say … Read more
On 6 February 1952, Philip was resting at Sagana Lodge in Kenya when his aide, Commander Michael Parker, received a coded telephone message. The prearranged signal, "Hyde Park Corner," had been relayed from Sandringham to Buckingham Palace, confirming the death of King George VI. Parker found a wireless set, positioned it away from Elizabeth, and … Read more
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, died at Windsor Castle on April 9, 2021, two months short of his 100th birthday. He had been married to Queen Elizabeth II for 73 years, a record no British consort had ever come close to matching. To understand the man behind that record, it helps to begin not … Read more