In February 1952, Philip was at Sagana Lodge in Kenya, resting in the afternoon, when his aide Commander Michael Parker received a coded telephone message. The pre-arranged 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 … Read more
On the morning of February 7, 1952, a woman sat alone at a desk in Sandringham House and wrote letters. Her husband had died in the night. The servants had found him in his bed, and by the time his daughter was informed, she was already on a different continent in Kenya. The widow, Elizabeth, … Read more
In late August 2013, Michael Douglas walked a red carpet alone in Deauville, France. He was there to promote "Behind the Candelabra," the role that had helped carry him back from a period of his life he was not sure he would survive. Fifteen years earlier, he had met Catherine Zeta-Jones in that same resort … Read more
On August 28, 2013, Michael Douglas walked the red carpet alone at the Deauville film festival in Normandy, France. He was there to promote "Behind the Candelabra," the role that had carried him back from a stretch of life he was not sure he would survive. Beside him, where for 15 years Catherine Zeta-Jones had … Read more
Queen Victoria’s private journal, kept daily for 69 years and running to an estimated 60 million words, survives today in 111 handwritten volumes at Windsor Castle’s Royal Archives. Every word in those volumes is in the handwriting of her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice. The originals are gone. Beginning in 1902, the year after her mother … Read more
In June 1536, at Hunsdon House in Hertfordshire, a 20-year-old woman sat with men of the Privy Council. Mary Tudor had been ill for weeks, suffering headaches, stomach pains, and sleeplessness. On the table before her lay a document written in the language of statute and theology. It asked her to declare her parents' marriage … Read more
Jennie Kim has spent the past decade at the center of some of the most heated debates in global pop culture. From accusations of excessive favoritism by her entertainment company to scandals involving cultural appropriation, suggestive costumes, and geopolitical controversy, the Blackpink member has become one of the most divisive figures in modern music. Long … Read more
On April 17, 2021, Windsor Castle held a funeral for 30 people. The guest list had started at 800 names before pandemic restrictions collapsed it. The palace made the cuts with the precision of people who had spent generations deciding who stood where and how close. The queen sat alone in her pew, masked in … Read more
The wedding was watched by 300 million people, the first royal wedding ever carried on television. The divorce that ended it was the first in the senior royal family since Henry VIII. Between those two public events sat 18 years of private weather. What separates this marriage from other unhappy marriages the House of Windsor … Read more
She was the most talked-about woman in Mayfair, a draper’s daughter who taught herself to dine as a viscountess and was painted more than once by the man who would one day save the nation. When she died alone in a hotel room in the middle of the war at age 42, with a police … Read more