How did the
royal family spend Christmas?
Jeremy Archer has delved in the royal archives to give us the personal
thoughts of the royals during the Christmas period. With extracts from the
diaries of Queen Victoria, George V, Queen Mary, the Duke of Windsor and many
others, some never published before, as well as letters and diaries of members
of the court, it makes fascinating reading.
Organised
thematically, it covers such topics as Christmas and conflict, Christmas
pastimes, festive feasts, the Christmas broadcasts and a look at how the
courtiers viewed Christmas in the royal household. The wartime entries make
especially poignant reading. “Rather sad without a tree or anything but one
does not feel in a festive mood,” Queen Mary wrote in her diary in 1914. Some interesting facts emerge as well –
did you know that a pie containing 100 woodcocks was sent as a gift by the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland until 1931?
In Victorian
times tableaux and pageants formed a great part of the festivities, both at
home and abroad, providing gorgeous pictures of the royal children - little Princes Georg and Friedrich Christian of
Saxony dressed, respectively, as one of St Nicholas’s helpers and a Christmas
tree in 1903; Prince Ludwig of
Bavaria as Father Christmas in 1919; Karl Borwin of Mecklenburg-Strelitz as a
star, 1891. Presents, of course,
were extremely important and chosen with the utmost care and it was considered
bad form to remove them before they had been admired.
The text is in
‘bite-sized’ pieces too, so you can dip in and out of it at will. The perfect
treat for a winter’s evening.
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