Holiday Weekend Links

 Happy Thanksgiving week, everyone!!  I just turned in final revisions on the next book, and am getting ready to make pies for tomorrow.  I hope you're having a lovely autumn!  In the meantime, here are a few distractions...

5 ways to support a small business during the holidays (from Everyday Parisian, which is a wonderful site!)

What wine goes with your holiday meals

The best Thanksgiving cocktails

A royal wedding on November 20, 1947

Wedding Gown Wednesday

Since I have a huge wedding gown Pinterest folder (I've been hoping to do a vintage gown wedding mystery series, but haven't quite hit on the right story yet!), I've decided to share a few of my favorites here.  Today we have the 1967 Jorgen Bender-designed gown of Queen Margrethe of Denmark, who celebrates 50 years on the throne this year!  It's one of my favorite royal wedding gowns (and I have LOTS of fave royal wedding gowns!)

Historical Wedding Weekend

 

On January 24, 1874, Prince Alfred, son of Queen Victoria, married Grand Duchess Marie, daughter of the Russian tsar, in an amazingly lavish ceremony in St Petersburg!  In my book Playing the Duke's Fiancee, I sent my characters off to Russia to attend the wedding, and absolutely loved researching the grand event!  Here's a bit about how it all went...

 

When I started writing Violet’s story, I was so excited to combine two of my old passionate interests into one book—the history of the British royal family, and nineteenth century Russia!  I also got to bring in another interest of mine, which might not really seem to fit into the 1870s—1930s screwball comedies!  I love it when strait-laced Cary Grant begins to enjoy life thanks to Katherine Hepburn or Irene Dunn, learning to have fun at last.  I also got to learn something quite new to me, Victorian photography.

 

Much like Prince Charles and Lady Diana in the 1980s, Prince Alfred (second son of Queen Victoria, a career naval officer) and Grand Duchess Marie, only daughter of Tsar Alexander II (who had many, many sons!) was the wedding of the year.  They met in 1868, but neither family approved of the match, and they didn’t marry until January1874.  It was a very lavish wedding at the Winter Palace, an Orthodox ceremony followed by an Anglican blessing, then a banquet for 700 and ball for 3000 until the early hours of the morning.  It was the sensation of the newspapers, with a Who Is Who guest list of people like the Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Royal Vicky and her husband, Prince Arthur, and the elderly Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg (who had no legitimate children so Alfred eventually was his heir).  (For more wedding details, I love the sadly now defunct blog, Order of Sartorial Splendor, whose archives are a gold mine!). 

The couple had five children, one son and four daughters (including the famous Marie of Romania), but it was not a happy union in the end.  They had little in common, and the prince was often gone on his naval assignments.  They moved often, including to Malta and Coburg, and came to be titled Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh.  Marie did not like English life, and was a Russian Orthodox grand duchess all her life.  She died in 1920 in Switzerland, long after her husband, in reduced circumstances.  I am sure Violet and William are MUCH happier in their life together!

(One quick note on the photographic exhibit Violet visits—it’s based on a famous display in 1864, a “Bazaaar for the benefit of female artists” at the Horticultural Gardens at Chiswick.  The photographers Julia Cameron, Clementina Hawarden, Lewis Carroll, and Oscar Rejlander are of course real figures, as are the royal family.)

If you’re curious about the time period, I loved these sources for further study!  And visit me at ammandamccabe.com for more info!

 

Photography

• Todd Gustavson, Camera: A History of Photography (2009)

• Alma Davenport, The History of Photography: An Overview (1991)

• Bruce Bernard, Photo Discovery: Masterworks of Photography 1840-1940 (1980)

• Victoria Olson, From Life: Julia Margaret Cameron (2003)

• Victorian Giants: The Birth of Photography (exhibition catalog)

• BEC Howarth-Loomes, Victorian Photography (1974)

 

Royalty

• Daphne Bennett, Queen Victoria’s Children (1980)

• John Van Der Kiste, Alfred: Queen Victoria’s Second Son (2013)

• Julia Baird, Victoria the Queen (2016)

• Adrian Tinniswood, Behind the Throne: A Domestic History of the British Royal Household (2018)

• Daphne Bernard, Vicky: Princess Royal of England and German Empress (1971)

• Jane Ridley, The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII (2013)

• Marie, Queen of Romania, The Story of My Life (reprint 2019)

• Richard Hough, Edward and Alexandra

 

Russia

• Stefano Papi, Jewels of the Romanovs (2010)

• Mathilde Kschenssinskaya, Dancing in Petersburg (1961)

• The Last Grand Duchess: Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga (1964)

• Russia: Art, Royalty, and the Romanovs

• Susan McCaffray, The Winter Palace (2018)

Royal Weddings

The Big Royal Wedding Day is only 3 weeks away!!!  I have checked my local TV listings, and realized I have to get up at 2:30 am.  (or, y'know, just stay awake all night eating cake and waiting for a glimpse of the dress).  In the meantime, I'm taking a look at another royal wedding in history (or rather, royal adjacent), that of Deborah Mitford to Lord Andrew Cavendish on April 19, 1941.

Debo Mitford was the youngest of the famously fabulous Mitford clan (I'm obviously a big fan!), and Lord Andrew the younger son of the Duke of Devonshire.  They met at a dinner party in 1938, and "we never stopped talking."  The rest of the Season they met at house parties, balls, dinners, races, and nightclubs like the Cafe de Paris and the 400.  Her mother warned her "I should give up seeing him if I were you, he's unreliable," and his mother told him "You either have to marry that girl or stop asking her here."  Marriage it was.  By then it was 1941, and the wedding was held in the midst of the Blitz.

The Mitfords' house, the site of the reception, was hit two days before the wedding, and all the windows blown out.  Muv made improvised window curtains from rolls of gray and gold wallpaper, took all the champagne stock she could find, and ordered a cake sans icing (there was no sugar to be had after rationing, so the icing was a cardboard casing taken off to cut the actual cake).  The ceremony was at St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, and there were no bridesmaids or pages, though the bride had a Victor Stiebel gown of eighty yards of tulle (just a few weeks before fabric rationing).  There were 6 days of honeymoon before Andrew left to join the Coldstream Guards.  His older brother was killed in the war, leaving the couple to eventually become the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.

They had a sometimes rocky marriage, but a successeful partnership in bring the great house of Chatsworth back to life.  Andrew died in 2004, Debo in 2014.

The Duchess of Devonshire has lots of books, all of them worth reading, but I found the wedding info on Wait for Me! (2010) and The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters (2007)

Royal Wedding of the Weekend

(Next week, my newest mystery, Santa Fe Mourning, first in my 1920s series, will be out and about at last!!!  I am so excited.  To celebrate, I'll start things off with a giveaway on Tuesday, and a few posts about the history of my hometown, Santa Fe, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, today's royal wedding...)








Today we'll take a look at the grandparents of last week's bride, Princess Mary, on their anniversary (March 10, 1863), Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

Alexandra's early life sounds something like a Cinderella tale.  Even though she was the daughter of the Danish king, and enjoyed a very close-knit family upbringing, the Danes were an obscure and not very wealthy royal family, especially compared with the might of the British Empire and Queen Victoria.  But the queen and the late Prince Albert had always despaired of their eldest son, thinking him debauched and not serious, and they were sure marrying and settling down early would do him good.  After Albert's death, Victoria turned to her eldest daughter Princess Vicky, now settled in Prussia, to find the right bride for Albert Edward (Bertie).  The queen wanted a German bride, but none were deemed pretty enough.  In fact, the only one who would do was the gorgeous Alexandra, then 16 years old.  A meeting was arranged, and a betrothal swiftly followed.

The wedding took place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor (which we will see again this May!), but the venue wasn't a popular choice.  It was outside London, so crowds wouldn't get a glimpse of the couple; it was small, so invitations were scarce; and it was inconvenient to get to.  The princess's elaborate gown (the first royal wedding dress to be photographed at the occasion; Victoria and Albert were photographed in their wedding clothes, but years after the event) was very fashionable.  Made of white Spitalfields silk satin, it was trimmed with wreaths of orange blossoms, myrtle, swaths of tulle, and Honiton lace, with a matching lace veil depicting English roses, Irish shamrocks, and Scottish thistles.  It was created by a Mrs. James of Belgravia, lace done by Messrs Julius Tucker and Co.

Alexandra was Princess of Wales until 1901, the longest to ever hold that title, and proved to be a very popular and stylish royal.  Despite Bertie's constant infidelities and her own health troubles (including growing deafness), they had 6 children and a relatively harmonious life together.  Bertie died in 1910, after a mere few years as queen, and Alexandra in 1925.

Royal Wedding

So, it's not the weekend, but since I was tearing my hair out with deadlines, we have our royal wedding today!  I thought, since their anniversary is just past, we could look at Princes Mary, the Princes Royal, and Viscount Lascelles.  They are little known today, but at the time their wedding was a source of much fashionable fascination.

Princess Mary was born Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary (but always called Mary) in 1897, the only daughter and third child of George V and Queen Mary, at the time the Duke and Duchess of York.  (it was the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and she suggested the baby be called "Diamond."  Luckily, this was ignored).  She became Princess Royal in 1932.  All her life she was an enthusiastic patron of charities, especially hospital and the Girl Guides, who she led from 1920 until her death.

She was the first of her siblings to marry.  In November 1921, she became engaged to Henry, Viscount Lascelles, son of the Earl of Harewood, who was 15 years older than herself, and who it seems she hadn't really known very long.  (There were later rumors the marriage was not very happy, but their son declared they "got on well together, and had a lot of friends and interests in common").  Queen Mary wrote after the engagement:

 “At 6.30 Mary came to my room to announce to me her engagement to Lord Lascelles! We then told G. (King George V) & then gave Harry L. our blessing. We had to keep it quiet owing to G. having to pass an order in council to give his consent. Of course, everybody guessed what had happened & we were very cheerful & almost uproarious at dinner. We are delighted.”

They were married at Westminster Abbey on February 28, 1922, the first marriage of the child of a monarch there since 1290.  Her gown was quintessentially 1920s, dropped waist, bandeau headpiece, pearl beadwork, created by Reville LTD of Hanover Square.  Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyons, a few years later to be the princess's sister-in-law, was one of the bridesmaids.

The couple, later Earl and Countess of Harewood, had two sons.  The earl died in 1947, and Princess Mary in March 1965.

You can see a list of her truly eye-popping collection of wedding gift jewels here
There is also a fascinating story of the journey of Queen Victoria's sapphire bandeau (one of those gifts) here

Royal Wedding of the Weekend

Hello, everyone!  We continue our celebration of all things royal wedding (since 2018 will bring is not one but two royal nuptials in England!) with a look at one of the most famous royal unions of all time, Victoria and Albert, who celebrated an anniversary this week (178 years!), and also because I am avidly watching "Victoria" on PBS. :)

Queen Victoria married her Prince Albert on February 10, 1840.  When she first met her cousin (her mother was his father's sister, and the match was long schemed about amongst the Coburgs), in April 1836, Victoria wrote to her Uncle Leopold to thank him for "the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me in the person of dear Albert!"  But she became busy being queen, and the match didn't happen until 1839, when Albert was summoned to England and Victoria proposed (as per protocol).  In her diary, she declared "To feel I was, and am, loved by such an Angel as Albert was too great a delight to describe!  How I love and adore him I cannot say."  Preparations were not all smooth, as not everyone wanted a foreign prince, and there was wrangling over incomes, titles, and precedence.  But at last the day was set--February 10.

The wedding was the first marriage of a queen regnant since Mary I, and the country was soon caught up in wedding fever.  The day was a cold, rainy one, but it didn't stop crowds from gathering to watch the royal carriages go by on their way to the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace.  The queen wore a gown of white English satin (an unusual but not unique choice, which set a new trend that lasts to this day) trimmed with Honiton lace flounces, a matching lace veil (which she would later be buried with) held with a wreath of orange blossoms, a diamond necklace and earrings, and a sapphire brooch that was Albert's gift.  (She described it as "I wore a white satin dress with a deep flounce of Honiton lace, in imitation of an old design").  Albert wore an English field marshal's uniform, and walked down the aisle to Handel.  Victoria was given away by her uncle, the Duke of Sussex, and 12 bridesmaids carried her 18 foot train.

A wedding breakfast was held at Buckingham Palace, the queen's newly renovated home, complete with a 300 pound cake iced in white.  "The happiest day of my life," she declared, and after the wedding night sighed, "I never, never spent such an evening."  Two months later she was pregnant with the first of 9.

The very happy, if sometimes stormy, marriage, a true partnership, sadly only lasted 21 years, when Albert died at age 42 in 1861.

A couple of great sources about the royal marriage are:
Julia Baird, Victoria: The Queen (2016)
Gillian Gill, We Two: Victoria and Albert (2009)

Royal Wedding of the Weekend

And, back from a winter hiatus of holiday festivity followed by "fun" illness, we have another look at a royal wedding in history!  (to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and now Princess Eugenie and her beau!  TWO royal weddings in one year!  I am much too excited)

Today's wedding was neither fun nor very festive.  On June 3, 1937, the ex-King Edward VIII turned Duke of Windsor finally married his longtime love, American divorcee and fashionista Wallis Simpson.  It had been a rocky road of illicit romance and a shocking abdication, a match that nearly ran off the rails several times, but Edward couldn't live his life without "the woman I love."  (Luckily for England, facing a grueling war, they got the exemplary King Georve VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother).

The wedding was completely lacking in royal pomp, and was short and simple.  It took place at the Chateau de Cande in Monts, France, performed by the mayor of Monts for the required civil ceremony, and Reverend R. Anderson Jardine for the Anglican rites.  (It was very hard for them to find a priest to perform the marriage, and poor Jardine paid the price in his career thereafter).  There were only a few guests, including Randolph Churchill (whose father secretly liked and supported the prince, until it became impossible), and best man "Fruity" Metcalfe.  Herman Rogers, husband of one of Wallis's old friend, a couple who gave her shelter during the abdication, walked her down the aisle to Handel.  The ceremony was held in the music room, with a makeshift altar of an oak chest covered with a tablecloth and laid with a gold cross and candles.

The bride's gown was from Mainbocher, described by Time magazine as "soft blue crepe with a tight, buttoned bodice, a halo-shaped hat of the same color, shoes and gloves to match.  At her throat was a tremendous diamond and sapphire brooch."  It's an elegant, clean-lined gown, free of any of the usual bridal fripperies of the time--a serious gown for a serious third marriage.  (Cecil Beaton hated the hat, and I can't say I think he was wrong)

The short ceremony was followed by champagne toasts, some photos on the terrace, and a ride to their honeymoon at Wasserloenberg Castle in Austria, where he carried his bride over the threshold.  They were married until his death in 1972, long years of scandal, wandering, and cafe society.  Maybe a sort of HEA for them.

For a romanticized view of the couple, I enjoy the duchess's own book, The Heart Has Its Reasons, and Diana, Lady Mosley's The Duchess of Windsor: A Memoir.  I also liked Anna Sebba's recent bio That Woman

Royal Wedding of the Weekend

To continue the celebration of All Things Royal Wedding, we go back in time for several centuries this weekend, to take a look at Edward III and Philipa of Hainault.  Not much is known about the actual wedding, but their's was a rare happy royal medieval union!

They met when they were only teenagers, and in the middle of some of the biggest dramas of medieval England.  Edward's father, Edward II, had long been a bad ruler, controlled by a series of venal favorites, and Prince Edward's French mother Isabella, dispossessed of her dower and separated from her children, had enough.  She managed to get back to France, seek her brother the French king's help, and refused to return to England.  What was more, she got control of her eldest son, the heir to the throne, when he joined her in Paris (a major miscalculation on her husband's part).  One of her main objectives was to organize the prince's marriage to bring benefit to her own cause, and in 1326, then Edward was 14, she took him to Hainault to take a look at the count's five daughters, thinking he could marry one in exchange for his assistance in her English coup.

Philipa was a couple of years younger than Edward, the second daughter, dark-haired, a bit plump, kind-hearted and sensible.  A chronicler of the time described her thus:

The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is clean-shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than her forehead. Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and also flattened, and yet it is no snub-nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip. Her teeth which have fallen and grown again are white enough, but the rest are not so white. The lower teeth project a little beyond the upper; yet this is but little seen. Her ears and chin are comely enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body are well set and unmaimed; and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is brown of skin all over, and much like her father; and in all things she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us. And the damsel will be of the age of nine years on St. John's day next to come, as her mother saith. She is neither too tall nor too short for such an age; she is of fair carriage, and well taught in all that becometh her rank, and highly esteemed and well beloved of her father and mother and of all her meinie, in so far as we could inquire and learn the truth

But Edward and Philipa grew very fond of each other.  He was sorry to part with her when he and his mother left, and Philipa was said to have cried.  They were a rare royal couple who got to know each other a bit before the marriage!  When the time came to arrange a betrothal, he was strongly in favor of Philipa being the chosen bride, and so she was.  When Edward II was overthrown and Edward III proclaimed in his place, a proxy marriage took place, and Philipa left for England.  In January 1328, the wedding took place at York Minster, the last royal marriage there until the Duke and Duchess of Kent in 1961.  They were married 40 years until Philipa's death in 1369.

The marriage might have started off strong, and stayed that way (they were very well-matched, both interested in hunting, festivities, travel, romantic stories, and family life), but the beginning of heir reign was rocky.  Edward was young, and for a few years real rule was carried out by his mother and her lover Roger Mortimer.  Philipa was not given her dower, and her coronation was delayed for two years (she was six month pregnant with their first son, the Black Prince, when it happened).  Edward finally managed to overthrow his mother and take the throne for himself.  The couple went on to have 13 children, and were often on the move together between Scotland, France, and Flanders.  Edward was devastated when his wife died, and quickly descended into dementia.  They are buried together at Westminster Abbey.

A good source for this exciting reign is Ian Mortimer's Edward III: The Perfect King

Royal Wedding Weekend: Queen Mary Tudor

Have you heard the news?? (I know you have!)  Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will be married at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, on May 19, and I am SO excited at the news.  To celebrate, I've decided to blog about a few royal weddings of the past.  Some ended happily, many did not, but there were always beautiful clothes, pageantry, and some kind of hope for the future.

We'll start in the 1500s, with the wedding of Queen Mary Tudor and Philip II of Spain, on July 25, 1554.  Mary had not been queen long, after her dramatic accession, and she was eager to marry.  She was 37, loved children, and really wanted to be a traditional wife, which she had been denied for her whole life.  There were also the concerns of state, the need for an heir.  But her choice was not a popular one.  Encouraged by her cousin and longtime mentor, Charles V, and with nostalgic memories of her Spanish mother, she determined to marry Charles's son Philip II.  Philip was 10 years younger but already a widower, and said to be very handsome.  Mary's council, and most of the country's population, were not big on foreigners, and had qualms that the two would unite in their uber-Catholicism.  Mary brushed them off, maybe already somewhat infatuated with the idea of a bit of romance in her life at long last, and declared she would marry him.  After quelling some anti-Spanish riots, she did just that.

The royal couple married at majestic Winchester Cathedral two days after meeting (Mary was enthusiastic; Philip less so, but no doubt being declared King of England made him happy enough).  As Philip spoke no English, the service was conducted in a mix of Latin, Spanish, and English, and it was hours long and quite grand.  Philip wore "breeches and doublet were white...over all a mantle of cloth of gold...ornamented with pearl and precious stones, and wearing the collar of the Garter."  The cathedral itself was "richly hanged with arras and cloth of gold," with a dais draped in scarlet and set with two thrones.  (Philip had been declared King of England, to rule alongside his wife).

Mary herself wore a dress of the French style, "rich tissue with a border and wide sleeves, embroidered upon purple satin, set with pearls," and a kirtle and train of white and silver satin.  (A splendid replica was made to be displayed at the cathedral)

The ceremony was followed with a lavish banquet and dancing, amid the uneasy mixing of Spanish and English courtiers (the Spanish didn't think much of Mary's looks), and then the marriage bed was blesed by Archbishop Gardiner and the couple put to bed.  The marriage was almost certainly consumated, because a few months later Mary thought herself pregnant, her blessing from God complete.  (It turned out to be a false pregnancy, a humiliating blow Mary never recovered from).  The marriage was marred by war, illness, and long separations, though Mary was devoted to her husband.

When Mary died in 1558, Philip was in Brussels and had not seen her in many months.  He declared he felt a "reasonable regret" for her death, and later tried to court her half-sister Elizabeth, and then married a French princess.  Much later, he went to war with the country where he was so briefly king, with the disastrous Armada.  I always feel so sorry for Mary.

There are many interesting biographies of Mary and Philip, but a couple of my favorites are:
Linda Porter, Mary Tudor: The First Queen
Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor, England's First Queen

You can see more about the Act of Marriage here.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_for_the_Marriage_of_Queen_Mary_to_Philip_of_Spain..

(and on a totally different note, if you are in the mood for a Regency Christmas read, my Wallflower's Mistletoe Wedding is still available!!  I promise it's a lot more fun than the fateful union of Mary and Philip....)

Wedding Celebration

I'm talking about my royal wedding obsession at the Riskies today! And since I feel in the mood to celebrate, I'm also having an impromptu contest--one commenter will receive a free download of my latest "Undone" story, To Court Capture and Conquer! Just tell me your favorite royal moment, and I will announce a winner this weekend...

Royal Weddings!

Last week was the big royal wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, and I've been having so much fun looking at the pics! I don't know a huge amount about the various European royals if they're not British (since I don't often read Hello! magazine; I used to read Royalty until my local Barnes & Noble quit carrying it), but I loved this romantic story and the gorgeous, elegant gown (plus that tiara! Originally made in Paris for Empress Josephine...)

And the princess in the pink is Infanta Elena of Spain. I am totally going to wear something like that at RWA next year!